Influences on assortative mating

Age plays a considerable role in assortative mating. As regards this criterion we can distinguish a "rural, more traditional model" with high values of the coefficients of correlation, and an "urban model" with significantly lower values. Concerning eye and hair colour we find both these models as well as transitional forms. In contrast to this there are no important differences in assortative mating between the rural and urban populations regarding the physical traits. Size of population and length of marriage can strongly influence the values of these correlations. They decrease as the size of the population decreases, in which a person chooses his/her partner. Increasing age of the couples also results in a decrease of these correlations.