Internet access and partnership formation in the United States

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Internet access and partnership formation in the United States

Sironi, M; Kashyap, R; (2021) Internet access and partnership formation in the United States. Population Studies pp. 1-19. 10.1080/00324728.2021.1999485. (In press). Green open access

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Abstract

The Internet has fundamentally altered how we communicate and access information and who we can interact with. However, the implications of Internet access for partnership formation are theoretically ambiguous. We examine their association using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97) and Current Population Survey (CPS) in the United States. We find that the relationship between Internet access and partnership states (in the NLSY97) or partnership status (in the CPS) is age-dependent. While negative at the youngest adult ages, the association becomes positive as individuals reach their mid- to late 20s, for both same-sex and different-sex partnerships. The results suggest that Internet access is positively associated with union formation when individuals enter the stage in the young adult life course when they feel ready to commit to a long-term partnership. Our study contributes to a growing literature that highlights the implications of digital technologies for demographic processes.

Type:	Article
Title:	Internet access and partnership formation in the United States
Location:	England
Open access status:	An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI:	10.1080/00324728.2021.1999485
Publisher version:	https://doi.org/10.1080/00324728.2021.1999485
Language:	English
Additional information:	© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Keywords:	CPS, Internet access, NLSY97, life course, technology, union formation
UCL classification:	UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Social Research Institute
URI:	https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10139510