Income, power, and who we choose
Hypergamy is real as a historical average and incomplete as a law. Close the income gap and the market switches toward homogamy.
Folk claim
High-earning men are biologically programmed to chase youth; high-earning women still chase richer men. The preference is an instinct, not a budget.
What the papers say
Buss (1989) does show sex-typical stated weights: men on youth/attractiveness, women on earning capacity. Fisman, Iyengar, Kamenica, and Simonson (2006) show those weights in a real choice environment — and also show intelligence, race, neighborhood affluence, and own-ambition ceilings. The modern quantitative reading is an incentives story: as women's own income and education rise, strict economic hypergamy loosens and educational/cultural homogamy takes the slack.
Treat mate preference as a function of market position and insurance, then look for residual sex differences. Do not start from the residual and work backwards to a myth.
What the surveys actually asked
Buss's 37-culture study is a stated-preference inventory, not a marriage registry. It is large, famous, and the correct citation for 'on average, men say they want younger partners and women say they want providers'. It is the wrong citation for 'therefore a raise will change your type'. Stated preference plus social-desirability is a soft instrument.
What the Columbia rooms revealed
Fisman et al. randomly seated Columbia speed-daters and recorded yes/no decisions, not essays. Men put more weight on physical attractiveness. Women put more weight on intelligence and race, preferred men from affluent neighborhoods, and men's value for a woman's intelligence/ambition fell once it exceeded their own. That is a much sharper object than a magazine listicle.
The identification problem
Nobody randomized wealth. Neighborhood affluence, education, and beauty are bundled. The backdoor from income to preference runs through the rooms you are allowed to enter. Close those rooms — or equalize female earnings — and the revealed weights move. That is why this atlas marks the income→preference edges spurious-until-identified, not 'debunked' and not 'proven instinct'.
Edges in this case
Observational · Moderate
Disposable income→Youth / fertility preference in partners
Richer men can act on a preference that poorer men also often hold. Money changes the feasible set, not necessarily the utility function.
Observational · Moderate
Disposable income→Income hypergamy preference
As the income gap closes, strict economic hypergamy yields to educational and cultural homogamy. Incentives, not a frozen instinct.
Observational · High confidence
Educational attainment→Educational homogamy
Education sorts the rooms where people meet. Homogamy is mostly a market-design fact.
Sources
Cite this page
What Causes What. “Income, power, and who we choose.” https://whatcauseswhat.org/cases/income-mate-preferences (atlas updated 2026-08-31).