For decades Aussies have been increasingly pairing up with similarly educated and
monied partners but online dating may have done away with "assortive mating"
Romantics may hear the word love and think 'at first sight' or 'is blind' or 'conquers all'.
But research economists will likely be inclined towards the less poetic "assortive mating".
The phrase describes the long-observed tendency to partner with others from similar educational and socio-economic backgrounds, often after meeting via school, university, work or overlapping social circles.
For decades, that sorting has quietly shaped the make-up of Australian households.
How online dating has changed the matchmaking game
Analysis from the e61 Institute shows 38 per cent of working-age couples now both hold a university degree.
Graduates are about 85 per cent more likely to partner with another graduate.
But just as the trend seemed to have permanently taken hold, online dating has drastically changed the way people meet.
Swipe culture has expanded the dating pool beyond lecture theatres and office corridors.
The question researchers are asking
Researchers are waiting to establish whether dating apps are reinforcing assortive mating or beginning to undo it.
According to research economist Elyse Dwyer, the pattern of assortive mating that has been developing for more than half a century has fundamentally changed the make-up of Australian couples.
Studies indicate a shift reflecting rising female participation in higher education and the workplace over the past 50 years, Ms Dwyer said, but the data only shows who couples partner up with up, not how or why.
"We can make guesses as to how they're partnering up.
"But to what extent is it this exposure mechanism versus this active seeking out? I'm not quite sure.”
Is location becoming less important?
That uncertainty matters in the age of Tinder.
If assortive mating was driven partly by proximity and shared institutions, dating apps have blown open those boundaries.
A teacher in Parramatta can match with a tradie in Penrith or a consultant from Potts Point, without ever sharing a workplace or campus.
And the priorities users report do not sound especially economic. Tinder's Year in Swipe 2025 report says it is seeing "a shift away from box ticking around career level or financial status and toward chemistry, shared values, authenticity and emotional availability".
"Kindness also remains a major marker of attraction."
Thirty-seven per cent of young singles say shared values are essential in dating, while 64 per cent say emotional honesty is what dating needs most.
More than half say being rude to staff is their biggest "ick"
Economics may be taking a back seat
On the surface, Tinder's findings suggest education level and income may be taking a back seat to banter, kindness and connection.
Ms Dwyer said online dating could push the trend "one of two ways".
On one hand, apps often display education and job information, making it easy to filter. On the other, they remove the structural limits of meeting only through work or study.
"There's some very early-stage research coming out of the US that suggests it's likely to be the second explanation … but that's only using about 10 years of data," Ms Dwyer said.
"Time will tell."
If that early evidence holds, the algorithms reshaping modern romance may also be loosening a decades-old pattern of matching like-for-like.
But whether swiping right widens social circles or simply sorts them in new ways may take years to show up in the statistics.
