Application of statistical emulation to an agent-based model: assortative mating and the reversal of gender inequality in education in Belgium.

Abstract

We describe the application of statistical emulation to the outcomes of an agent-based model. The agent-based model simulates the mechanisms that might have linked the reversal of gender inequality in higher education with observed changes in educational assortative mating in Belgium. Using the statistical emulator as a computationally fast approximation to the expensive agent-based model, it is feasible to use a genetic algorithm in finding the parameter values for which the corresponding agent-based model outcome is closest to known empirical output. These optimal parameter values are then interpreted sociologically