IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/jas/jasssj/2007-101-2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Population Heterogeneity and Individual Differences in an Assortative Agent-Based Marriage and Divorce Model (MADAM) Using Search with Relaxing Expectations

Author

Abstract

While many models have investigated the role of competitive mate selection processes in human marriage, few have addressed the potential for assortative processes to explain the observed demographics, as well as simultaneously investigating divorce. To explore the possibility that assortative mate selection processes may explain patterns of both marriage and divorce, we developed an agent-based model, MADAM (Marriage and Divorce Annealing Model), based on homophilic trait matching, in which individuals search for mates similar to themselves, but relax these expectations as they age. MADAM assumes individuals live in a world with N mate-relevant traits, where each individual chooses a set of k traits from those N to represent his or her identity. Individuals seek marriage partners with some number of identical traits, but over time relax their expectations for this desired threshold number of matching traits. Divorce is allowed when individuals find a partner who shares more traits with them than their current partner. With this implementation, we explored how population heterogeneity and individual differences affect population-level demographic trends, finding that increasing population heterogeneity and a reduction in the rate of relaxing expectations can both increase the mean age at first marriage. MADAM also accurately predicts demographic marriage and divorce data across cultures, with quantitatively accurate predictions for length of first marriage, likelihood of first marriage ending in divorce, and percent of population married by the end of the lifespan.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas Hills & Peter Todd, 2008. "Population Heterogeneity and Individual Differences in an Assortative Agent-Based Marriage and Divorce Model (MADAM) Using Search with Relaxing Expectations," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 11(4), pages 1-5.
    • Handle: RePEc:jas:jasssj:2007-101-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.jasss.org/11/4/5/5.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gardner, Jonathan & Oswald, Andrew, 2004. "How is mortality affected by money, marriage, and stress?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(6), pages 1181-1207, November.
    2. Charles Hirschman & Bussarawan Teerawichitchainan, 2003. "Cultural and Socioeconomic Influences on Divorce During Modernization: Southeast Asia, 1940s to 1960s," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 29(2), pages 215-253, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jakub Bijak & Jason D. Hilton & Eric Silverman & Viet Dung Cao, 2013. "Reforging the Wedding Ring," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 29(27), pages 729-766.
    2. Lyndon Walker & Peter Davis, 2013. "Modelling "Marriage Markets": A Population-Scale Implementation and Parameter Test," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 16(1), pages 1-6.
    3. André Grow & Jan Van Bavel, 2015. "Assortative Mating and the Reversal of Gender Inequality in Education in Europe: An Agent-Based Model," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(6), pages 1-24, June.
    4. Peter Todd & Thomas Hills & Andrew Hendrickson, 2013. "Modeling reproductive decisions with simple heuristics," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 29(24), pages 641-662.
    5. Ismail Saglam, 2021. "The Success of the Deferred Acceptance Algorithm Under Heterogenous Preferences with Endogenous Aspirations," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 57(2), pages 577-591, February.
    6. Anna Klabunde & Frans Willekens, 2016. "Decision-Making in Agent-Based Models of Migration: State of the Art and Challenges," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 32(1), pages 73-97, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cinzia Di Novi, 2007. "An Economic Evaluation of Life-Style and Air-pollution-related Damages: Results from the BRFSS," JEPS Working Papers 07-001, JEPS.
    2. Binder, Martin & Coad, Alex, 2013. "“I'm afraid I have bad news for you…” Estimating the impact of different health impairments on subjective well-being," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 155-167.
    3. Leonardo Becchetti, 2010. "The Money–Happiness Relationship in Transition Countries: Evidence from Albania," Transition Studies Review, Springer;Central Eastern European University Network (CEEUN), vol. 17(1), pages 39-62, May.
    4. Kazuma Sato, 2020. "Does marriage improve subjective health in Japan?," The Japanese Economic Review, Springer, vol. 71(2), pages 247-286, April.
    5. Borowiecki, Karol Jan & Kavetsos, Georgios, 2015. "In fatal pursuit of immortal fame: Peer competition and early mortality of music composers," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 30-42.
    6. Martin Binder & Felix Ward, 2011. "The Structure of Happiness: A Vector Autoregressive Approach," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2011-08, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.
    7. Van Landeghem, Bert, 2012. "A test for the convexity of human well-being over the life cycle: Longitudinal evidence from a 20-year panel," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 571-582.
    8. Gardner, Jonathan & Oswald, Andrew J., 2007. "Money and mental wellbeing: A longitudinal study of medium-sized lottery wins," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 49-60, January.
    9. Binder, Martin & Coad, Alex, 2010. "An examination of the dynamics of well-being and life events using vector autoregressions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 352-371, November.
    10. Leonardo Becchetti & Stefano Castriota & Nazaria Solferino, 2011. "Development Projects and Life Satisfaction: An Impact Study on Fair Trade Handicraft Producers," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 115-138, March.
    11. Beomsoo Kim & Christopher J. Ruhm, 2012. "Inheritances, health and death," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(2), pages 127-144, February.
    12. Balia, Silvia & Jones, Andrew M., 2008. "Mortality, lifestyle and socio-economic status," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 1-26, January.
    13. Karol Jan BOROWIECKI & Georgios KAVETSOS, 2011. "Does Competition Kill? The Case of Classical Composers," Trinity Economics Papers tep1111, Trinity College Dublin, Department of Economics.
    14. Dennis Petrie & Chris Doran & Anthony Shakeshaft & Rob Sanson-Fisher, 2007. "The relationship between alcohol consumption and self-reported health status using the EQ5D," Dundee Discussion Papers in Economics 204, Economic Studies, University of Dundee.
    15. Woojin Chung & Roeul Kim, 2014. "Does Marriage Really Matter to Health? Intra- and Inter-Country Evidence from China, Japan, Taiwan, and the Republic of Korea," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(8), pages 1-10, August.
    16. Daniel Grossman & John Cawley & Damien de Walque, 2018. "Effect of Stress on Later‐Life Health: Evidence from the Vietnam War Draft," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 85(1), pages 142-165, July.
    17. Stoyanova, Alexandrina Petrova & Díaz Serrano, Lluís, 2013. "Disentangling the link between health and social capital: A comparison of immigrant and native-born populations in Spain," Working Papers 2072/222194, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    18. Bryson, Alex & Barth, Erling & Dale-Olsen, Harald, 2012. "Do higher wages come at a price?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 251-263.
    19. Frijters, Paul & de New, John & Shields, Michael A., 2005. "Socio-Economic Status, Health Shocks, Life Satisfaction and Mortality: Evidence from an Increasing Mixed Proportional Hazard Model," IZA Discussion Papers 1488, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Guner, Nezih & Kulikova, Yuliya & Llull, Joan, 2014. "Does Marriage Make You Healthier?," IZA Discussion Papers 8633, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:jas:jasssj:2007-101-2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Francesco Renzini (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.