Eight Decades of Educational Assortative Mating: A Research Note by Noah Hirschl, Christine R. Schwartz, and Elia Boschetti (2024) – Department of Sociology – UW-Madison Skip to main content Home Publications 80 Years of Educational Assortative Mating: A Research Note by Noah Hirschl, Christine R. Schwartz, and Elia Boschetti (2024)Noah Hirschl, Christine R. Schwartz, and Elia Boschetti (2024)
demographics
Abstract:
Recent social and economic trends in the United States, including increasing economic inequality, women’s growing educational advantage, and the rise of online dating, have had an ambiguous impact on patterns of educational homogamy. In this research note, we expand on earlier work by Schwartz and Mair and use the U.S. Decennial Census and American Community Survey to examine educational assortative mating in the United States over the past 80 years (1940-2020). Investigate changes in We find that the increase in educational homogamy noted by Schwartz and Mair has not continued. The increase in educational homogamy stalled around 1990 and began to reverse in the 2000s. Although marriage increasingly crosses educational boundaries, a college degree remains the strongest boundary for intermarriage. A key trend explaining this new pattern is that women are increasingly likely to marry men with lower educational attainment. Without this trend, same-sex marriages would have continued to increase until the early 2010s. It also shows substantial heterogeneity by race, ethnicity, nativity, and between same-sex and opposite-sex couples.
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