FORMAL INTERMEDIARIES IN THE MARRIAGE MARKET - A TYPOLOGY AND REVIEW

The growing number of singles has been accompanied by a proliferation of social introduction services including singles ads, video dating, and matchmakers. This paper analyzes these services by their underlying functions in the marriage market. These functions include search for information about eligible others, matching interested singles together, and promoting successful interaction. This typology is used to structure a review of the empirical research on these services. This paper concludes with recommendations for future research.