How broadband and cell phone access have impacted marriage and divorce in the US

Internet use has lowered search costs in the marriage market, as participants (both single and married) can now search for and gather information more easily on potential partners. Additionally, the internet provides ample entertainment options that may act as a substitute for relationships. This paper extends the literature on internet and marriage by using more recent data, a more refined geographical level, and by including a measure of mobile internet. County-level data provides ample variation in internet access and enables consideration of marriage-market size as measured by population and urban density. Fixed-effect regressions indicate that increases in internet access from 2008–2015, either through broadband or cell phone access, are associated with decreased marriage and increased divorce in rural counties. However, in large metropolitan areas, expansion in internet access is correlated with increases in the married population and decreases in the divorced or separated populations. Regressions on age at marriage and percent of the ever-married population in their first, second, or third marriage suggests that the rise in the married population in urban areas is derived from both an increase in initial uptake of marriage and an increase in re-matching of divorcees in secondary marriage markets.