Simulation provides an effective means of observing the effects of complex social interactions and decision models. This presentation will discuss simulation models of partnership choice. In particular it will examine the proclivity of agents to choose a partner of a similar educational level to themselves, and the societal patterns that this results in. The motivation behind these simulation models is to explore the impact of various decision rules and factors such as social norms on the homogamy (like with like) of the partnerships.

In the presentation I will discuss sources of Australian partnership data, including the Australian Census and the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey. I will then explore how abstract models of partnership choice can be expanded to incorporate empirical data from these sources, so rather than representing an abstract marriage market the models will represent the Australian marriage market. I will conclude by describing future possibilities of simulating partnerships within census data using high power computing resources.