Educational assortative mating and the decline of hypergamy in 27 European countries: An examination of trends through cohorts

Abstract

BACKGROUNDTheories of partner selection emphasize the principal role of available partners in the relationship market. As education is a common socioeconomic attribute through which individuals choose a mate, macrostructure theory highlights the importance of the asymmetric change in educational attainment seen in Europe. As women increasingly participate in tertiary education, this restructuring might result in the decline of traditional hypergamous unions. OBJECTIVEWe aim to verify previous results confirming the decline of educational hypergamy and the rise of hypogamy, which has been found to be related to women's growing educational advantage. We also wish to provide a current picture of this process in Europe by looking at the youngest cohort available during the analysis. METHODSWe pooled nine waves of the European Social Survey and examined trends in seven cohorts. Apart from simple percentage differences in education, we reconstructed the indices of female educational advantage (F-index) and the prevalence of hypergamy (Hindex), with provided correlation statistics and fitted linear trend lines. RESULTSOur results corroborated the findings of previous multi-country analyses. In nearly all selected countries, women were more present in higher education than men, resulting in a uniform increase in the female educational advantage. Parallel to this, hypergamy declined through the cohorts, which correlated with women's emerging educational lead. CONTRIBUTIONOur results verify the findings from previous years, using a newer dataset and detailed cohort perspective, and confirm the decline of hypergamy as women gain advantage in

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“…Teorijski posmatrano, ta veza je utemeljena na dve osnovne pretpostavke: a) postojanje ličnih preferencija, koje se razlikuju za žene i muškarce i koje se mogu menjati tokom vremena; b) postojanje tržišta braka, čija obrazovno-polna kompozicija takođe nije statična. Posmatrano u demografskim okvirima, bez socijalnih ili prostornih određenja, tržište braka predstavlja deo ukupnog stanovništva koje potencijalno može zasnovati brak ili partnersku zajednicu trajnijeg karaktera (Erat 2021).…”

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