Trends in educational assortative marriage from 1940 to 2003

Abstract

This paper reports trends in educational assortative marriage from 1940 to 2003 in the United States. Analyses of census and Current Population Survey data show that educational homogamy decreased from 1940 to 1960 but increased from 1960 to 2003. From 1960 to the early 1970s, increases in educational homogamy were generated by decreasing intermarriage among groups of relatively well-educated persons. College graduates, in particular; were increasingly likely to marry each other rather than those with less education. Beginning in the early 1970s, however; continued increases in the odds of educational homogamy were generated by decreases in intermarriage at both ends of the education distribution. Most striking is the decline in the odds that those with very low levels of education marry up. Intermarriage between college graduates and those with "some college" continued to decline but at a more gradual pace. As intermarriage declined at the extremes of the education distribution, intermarriage among those in the middle portion of the distribution increased. These trends, which are similar for a broad cross section of married couples and for newlyweds, are consistent with a growing social divide between those with very low levels of education and those with more education in the United States.

Segregation in Social Networks Based on Acquaintanceship and Trust

“…One of these factors is rising rates of interracial marriage, and another is the relatively high rate of instability of both cohabitation and marriage, which increases the rate of repartnering at older ages and thereby lowers marital homogamy (Schwartz and Mare, 2005). The impact of these trends is magnified by the relative difficulty of hiding one's religious orientation, sexual orientation, political orientation, or cohabitation behavior from other family members.…”

“…In particular, the association between income and family type has increased (Burtless, 1999). The association between wife's education and husband's education has increased (Schwartz and Mare, 2005). The association between income and political partisanship has increased (McCarty et al, 2006).…”

Cor, educação e casamento: tendências da seletividade marital no Brasil, 1960 a 2000

“…No Brasil, não há dados longitudinais que permitam esse tipo de desenho analítico, embora alguns bancos de dados possuam perguntas retrospectivas sobre o momento em que as pessoas se casaram e poderiam ser usados, com alguma limitação, para estudar a incidência de casamentos usando modelos de sobrevivência. De qualquer modo, bancos de dados sobre estoques de casamento vêm sendo utilizados com sucesso em várias pesquisas sobre tendências de longa duração na seletividade matrimonial (Kalmijn, 1991b;Mare, 1991;Schwartz e Mare, 2005 Os dados para educação revelam não apenas que o percentual de pessoas com menos educação que estão casadas é levemente menor do que o percentual para pessoas mais educadas, mas que há também a mesma tendência de diminuição do percentual de pessoas casadas entre 1960 e 2000. Todas essas variações percentuais são relativamente pequenas, o que indica que não levar em conta as probabilidades de os indivíduos se casarem não estaria enviesando substancialmente as análi-ses que fazemos.…”

Accounting for the spouse when measuring inequality of opportunity

“…11 The case of responsibility for partner's circumstances represented by the blue graph shows mostly identical results for gross and net earnings. 12 Both graphs show an in- 11 The literature on assortative mating shows an increase in assortative mating in education over time that also reflects in earnings (Schwartz and Mare 2005). A detailed discussion on the importance of assortative mating is conducted in 4.4.…”