Researchers from the St Louis Federal Reserve have found that online dating may be partially to blame for an increase in household income inequality. Using data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey from 2008 to 2021, during which online dating gained widespread popularity, the economists observed that women increasingly preferred partners based on age, whereas men showed more of a preference for partners based on educational background. In their 2019 paper, Michael Rosenfeld, Reuben Thomas, and Sonia Hausen also showed a significant shift in how married couples first meet, charting an increase from only 2 percent in 1998 to 20 percent in 2008, and then soaring to nearly 50 percent by 2017.