Matchmaker Says: Who Marries Who?

When it comes to falling in love, it’s not just fate that brings people together—sometimes it’s their jobs. We scanned data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2014 American Community Survey—which covers 3.5 million households—to find out how people are pairing up. Some of the matches seemed practical (the most common marriage is betweengrade-school teachers), and others had us questioning Cupid’s aim (why do female dancers have a thing for male welders?)...


This Chart Shows Who Marries CEOs, Doctors, Chefs and Janitors…

When it comes to falling in love, it’s not just fate that brings people together—sometimes it’s their jobs. We scanned data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2014 American Community Survey—which covers 3.5 million households—to find out how people are pairing up. Some of the matches seemed practical (the most common marriage is betweengrade-school teachers), and others had us questioning Cupid’s aim (why do female dancers have a thing for male welders?). High-earning women (doctors, lawyers) tend to pair up with their economic equals, while middle- and lower-tier women often marry up. In other words, female CEOs tend to marry other CEOs; male CEOs are OK marrying their secretaries.

– Adam Pearce and Dorothy Gambrell


When Matchmaker Boon sent this out to the team last week, it got us thinking…Hmm. So maybe we should be recruiting for/matching to compatible job types?

Other questions arose as well. Which of our matchmakers already take people’s professions into consideration when matching them? If they do, in what way and why was that decision made – and how did it go? Matchmaker Christina provided some insight…

“Some clients come into this process with certain criteria or preferences in mind regarding status, education, career, and income, and many are surprised by their compatibility with matches presented that bear little resemblance to the figure in their heads that they’ve concocted over the years as their perfect soul mate.  This is the matchmaker’s job, and the benefit of having a third party perspective and partner in this – to encourage discovery and growth.

I have found, however, that entrepreneurs are another game. People who’ve spent their entire adult lives in the state of *striving* and are bored with substantial, all-consuming goals tend to connect best with similarly high achieving workaholics. Thus CEO-pairing has become an almost common part of my job.”

So there certainly does seem to be weight to this. Interested to see what profession type you are statistically a match for? Check it out here.

Love,

The Matchmakers

Art by Cássio Markowski

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