New research that says thanks to the Internet, marriage rates among young people, which have been declining for years, are 15% to 30% higher than they would be without the Web. The author of the research, Andriana Bellou, says that while previous studies have suggested a correlation between the Internet and the marriage market, her paper goes further, providing 'pretty convincing' evidence 'that it's a causal effect.' Ms. Bellou, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Montreal, set out her findings in ' The Impact of Internet Diffusion on Marriage Rates: Evidence from the Broadband Market,' a paper for the Institute for the Study of Labor in Bonn. She studied U.S. data from roughly 1990 to 2006 on the marital status of individuals between 21 and 30 years old from the Current Population Survey, along with Federal Communications Commission reports on the spread of broadband. She found marriage rates were slightly higher among college-educated individuals than those without college degrees. 'In recent decades, we have observed important transformations in the marriage market,' Ms. Bellou said. For one thing, more young people are seeking marriage partners on the Internet, and relying less on family and friends for such introductions. The Internet's effect on the marriage market could be just as transformative as its effect on matching employers and job-seekers, Ms. Ballou said, given 'access to an expanding set of potential partners,' while preserving 'a degree of anonymity' for the searcher. But those very characteristics also could undermine the strength of Internet-made matches. 'If the Internet indeed makes meeting people easier at all times and ages then one might consider entering a marriage less thoughtfully to begin with,' she said. 'This would imply more marriages and remarriages but also more divorces. If, on the other hand, the Internet allows matching between more compatible people, one would expect divorce rates to decrease. More research is required to disentangle these effects.' 一項新的研究稱，正是由於互聯網的出現，年輕人的結婚率相比沒有網絡的時代高出了15%至30%。多年來年輕人結婚率一直呈下降趨勢。 這項研究的作者貝盧(Andriana Bellou)說，雖然以往的研究表明互聯網和婚姻市場之間存在相關性。但她的論文更進一步，提供了“相當有說服力的”證據表明二者間存在“因果關係”。 蒙特利爾大學(University of Montreal)經濟學助理教授貝盧在一篇名爲《互聯網擴散對結婚率的影響：從寬帶市場得到的證據》(The Impact of Internet Diffusion on Marriage Rates: Evidence from the Broadband Market)的論文中闡明瞭她的發現。這篇論文是爲波恩的研究機構勞動研究所(Institute for the Study of Labor)所寫的。她研究了來自《當期人口調查》(Current Population Survey)的數據，內容是美國大約從1990年到2006年21歲到30歲之間的人的婚姻狀況，還研究了聯邦通訊委員會(Federal Communications Commission)有關帶寬普及方面的報告。他發現，相比沒有大學學位的人，那些接受過大學教育的人結婚率要稍微高一點。 貝盧說，我們發現，最近這幾十年婚姻市場出現了重要的變化。其中之一就是，有更多的年輕人在網上尋找婚姻伴侶，更少依靠家人和朋友的介紹。 貝盧說，互聯網對婚姻市場的影響可能與其對僱主和求職者相匹配的影響具有同樣的轉型意義，即能讓求偶者獲得更多的潛在婚姻對象，也能讓搜索者在一定程度上保持匿名。不過，這些特徵也可能影響到網絡促成的婚姻的堅實程度。 她說，如果說互聯網的確讓人們在任何時候、任何年齡遇到意中人變得容易，那麼或許有人會較爲輕易地就開始一段婚姻關係；這不僅意味著有更多人結婚、再婚，也意味著有更多人離婚；如果互聯網讓更加相投的人走到一起，那麼人們可能認爲，離婚率會有所下降；要想把這些互相糾纏在一起的效應分離出來，需要做更多的研究工作。
