Dating and race
Here's some interesting hard data on racism in dating. It's derived from the response rates of OK Cupid users to messages from other OK Cupid users. (They stuck to straight people for this analysis)
http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/2009/10/05/your-race-affects-whether-people-write-you-back/
As they point out, the crowd of OK Cupid users likely skews younger, more intelligent, and less old-fashioned than other dating sites. So the racism seen in this pool of users is probably even worse on more mainstream dating sites.
The data on religion is interesting too... this was derived using compatibility scores. Agnostics, Atheists, Jews, and Buddhists all appear to form a cluster, Christians and Protestants form another cluster, and the Muslims form their own cluster. It appears that there's something weird going on with Hindus... Hindu women are more flexible about their partners' religions while Hindu men are less compatible with anyone.
http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/2009/09/29/how-races-and-religions-match-in-online-dating/
http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/2009/10/05/your-race-affects-whether-people-write-you-back/
As they point out, the crowd of OK Cupid users likely skews younger, more intelligent, and less old-fashioned than other dating sites. So the racism seen in this pool of users is probably even worse on more mainstream dating sites.
The data on religion is interesting too... this was derived using compatibility scores. Agnostics, Atheists, Jews, and Buddhists all appear to form a cluster, Christians and Protestants form another cluster, and the Muslims form their own cluster. It appears that there's something weird going on with Hindus... Hindu women are more flexible about their partners' religions while Hindu men are less compatible with anyone.
http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/2009/09/29/how-races-and-religions-match-in-online-dating/