The FRED Blog has examined how the internet has affected our choices of where to shop for certain goods and services. And recent research from Paulina Restrepo-Echavarría at the St. Louis Fed has examined how the internet may have affected our choices related to dating and marriage.

New trends in dating and marriage aside, most households are still occupied by married couples, although the fraction of these households dropped from a peak of 87.8% in 1953 to 73.7% in 2023.

The FRED graph above shows data from the US Census Bureau on types of households, which are categorized by the person or persons in whose name the housing unit is rented or owned: married couples in blue, male householders in red, and female householders in green. These annual data are displayed in a stacked area graph to easily compare the relative amounts of these family household types.

Restrepo-Echavarría’s research compares married couples in the 2008-2021 period, as the use of online dating was rising, with those from the pre-internet years of 1960-1980. She and her coauthors find that people have increasingly been marrying someone more like themselves, with the same income, education, and skill levels.

They also look at some of the economic effects of this homogeneity, which they find has contributed to the increase in household income inequality between 1980 and 2020. For more about this and other research, visit the publications page of the St. Louis Fed’s website, which offers an array of economic analysis and expertise provided by our staff.

How this graph was created: Search FRED for and select “Family Households with Married Couples.” Click on the “Edit Graph” button, select the “Add Line” tab, and search for “Family Households with Male Householder.” Don’t forget to click “Add data series.” Repeat the last search step to add “Family Households with Female Householder” to the graph. Last, use the “Format” tab to select “Graph type: Area” and “Stacking: Percent.”

Suggested by Diego Mendez-Carbajo.