Educational assortative mating and economic inequality: A comparative analysis of three Latin American countries

Educational assortative mating and economic inequality are likely to be endogenously determined, but very little research exists on their empirical association. Using census data and log-linear and log-multiplicative methods, I compare the patterns of educational assortative mating in Brazil, Chile, and Mexico, and explore the association between marital sorting and earnings inequality across countries. The analysis finds substantial variation in the strength of specific barriers to educational intermarriage between countries, and a close association between these barriers and the earnings gaps across educational categories within countries. This finding suggests an isomorphism between assortative mating and economic inequality. Furthermore, educational marital sorting is remarkably symmetric across gender in spite of the different resources that men and women bring to the union. This study highlights the limitations of using single aggregate measures of spousal educational resemblance (such as the correlation coefficient between spouses’ schooling) to capture variation in assortative mating and its relationship with socioeconomic inequality.     

Ethnic assortative matching in marriage and family outcomes: evidence from the mass migration to the US during 1900–1930

Positive assortative matching in terms of traits such as ethnicity and race has been prevalent in marital formation. One possible explanation for this is that spouses in endogamous marriages possess complementary skills and tastes that increase marital surplus. This paper aims to estimate the effects of ethnic assortative matching on a variety of household outcomes by using the exogenous variation in immigrant flows in the USA during the period 1900–1930 to disentangle the selection effect of partners. The major finding is that the complementarities in home production from same ethnic marriage enhances investment in household public goods such as childrearing and home ownership and reduces the market labor supply of wives. The OLS estimates of the sizes of these effects appear to be substantially biased downward, indicating positive selection into intermarriage in terms of unobservable traits that increase marital surplus.     

Family planning communication between spouses in Sri Lanka

Drawing on data from a national follow-up survey of 2310 currently married women aged 15-49 conducted in Sri Lanka in 1985, this study examines patterns of family planning communication between spouses, social and economic factors related to those patterns, and the consistency between spouses in their responses to questions about family planning attitudes and practice. The results of the analysis indicate a high degree of family planning communication between spouses in Sri Lanka. The communication, however, varied according to couples' number of living children and to wives' age, education, place of residence, religion, and work status. Multivariate logistic regression generally confirms that older women, those with little or no education, those living on tea estates, and Muslims were less likely to communicate with their husbands on family planning matters than were women in other age, education, residence, and religion categories. These findings suggest the existence of social and cultural obstacles to communication between spouses about family planning matters in Sri Lanka. Among the 577 pairs of spouses whose answers were compared for consistency, a large proportion of wives reported hearing about male contraceptive methods directly from their husbands, and a large proportion of husbands reported hearing about female methods from their wives. These findings are a reminder that both spouses are potentially important sources of information about contraception.     

The differential effects of husbands' and wives' statuses on marital fertility

As an extension of prior subjectively-oriented studies that predicted couples' fertility decisions or outcomes by the expected costs and benefits of childbearing to husbands and wives, this article examines the differentiated effects of husbands' and wives' objective statuses on marital fertility, using the cumulative 1972–1990 GSS data. An interesting finding is that wives' education has a significant, negative effect on fertility while the effect of husbands' education is positive and statistically insignificant. This suggests that the generalization of the negative effect of education on fertility may be misleading if one fails to make a distinction between marital partners. Meanwhile, this study finds no significant differences in the effects of husbands' and wives' occupational and work statuses on fertility. By and large, the husbands' status variables add little information to the models explaining fertility. It is also found that the effects of husbands' and wives' statuses are contingent upon their relative education.     

Educational attainment as a selective factor in marital status transitions in the United States

Data on marital status from the 1940, 1950, and 1960 censuses of the United States are organized to show (1) trends in percentages of men and women who were single, by age and education (grades of school completed); (2) relative education levels of husbands and wives for selected groups of couples in 1940 and I960 with comparisons for the two years; and (3) education levels of women in 1950 by marital status, controlling for age and year of entry into the 1950 marital status. The rate at which single persons married for the first time increased markedly during the decade of the 1940's but much less in the next decade. The 1940's increases occurred for both sexes at all educational levels and at all ages except the oldest. However, the rate of increase was greatest for both sexes in the ages from about 20 to 34 for women and 22 to S4for men (modal age for first marriage is 18 for women and 21 for men). The distribution of percents single by age was about the same in all three censuses for persons with elementary schooling.A trend toward smaller proportions of the single, both men and women, among young persons with college education continued for the entire twenty-year period, despite the lack of such a trend in the 1950's at other age and education levels. However, the available data on education of first-married husbands and wives indicate that the ratio of college-educated husbands to college-educated wives was higher in 1960 than in 1940. Part of the explanation may lie in the relatively high proportions of college-educated women found in the marital statuses "divorced" and "married more than once" in the 1950 Census, particularly at the younger ages and shorter durations; but the data are not adequate for a very satisfactory explanation. For the younger first-married for whom education of partners was cross-tabulated in 1940 and 1960, the proportions of college-educated persons were so much higher in 1960 than in 1940 that the proportions also increased of both husbands and wives at all educational levels who were married to college-educated partners. There was a marked decline in proportions of couples with only elementary schooling.Finally, based on data from the 1950 Census for women (15-59 years of age), the separated group included more with only elementary schooling, as did the widowed. Those remaining single and those married once usually included the highest proportions of college-educated women.     

Mobility,Non-Familial Activity,and Fertility

In this analysis of fertility data from a sample of non-Catholic faculty couples in an American university, temporal patterns and variations in education, employment, marriage, and parenthood of the husbands and wives are discussed in reference to (1) the social mobility-fertility hypothesis and (2) a non-familial activity-fertility hypothesis.The couples are divided into four groups on the basis of family size and mobility status: (1) mobile-small, (2) non-mobile-small, (3) mobile-large, and (4) non-mobile-large. Whatever their mobility status, the four groups of husbands successfully completed requirements for the doctoral degree at about the same age and became established at about the same time in life and within the profession. Whatever their husbands' social origins, the wives also differ little with respect to educational attainment and in their work experiences in prematrimonial days. However, a different pattern is found in the work experiences of the wives since marriage. Those with two children are more likely to be employed after marriage and parenthood.On the other hand, a good many more wives with four or more children not only never worked before marriage but also remained outside the labor force after marriage (in the earlier years of marriage as well as after the tenth anniversary). The present data thus seem to support an analytically useful distinction between the "working wives" and the "working mothers."     

Rethinking the Two-Body Problem: The Segregation of Women Into Geographically Dispersed Occupations

Empirical research on the family cites the tendency for couples to relocate for husbands’ careers as evidence against the gender neutrality of household economic decisions. For these studies, occupational segregation is a concern because occupations are not random by sex and mobility is not random by occupation. I find that the tendency for households to relocate for husbands’ careers is better explained by the segregation of women into geographically dispersed occupations rather than by the direct prioritization of men’s careers. Among never-married workers, women relocate for work less often than men, and the gender effect disappears after occupational segregation is accounted for. Although most two-earner families feature husbands in geographically clustered jobs involving frequent relocation for work, families are no less likely to relocate for work when it belongs to the wife. I conclude that future research in household mobility should treat occupational segregation occurring prior to marriage rather than gender bias within married couples as the primary explanation for the prioritization of husbands’ careers in household mobility decisions.     

The marital satisfaction of differently aged couples

We investigate how the marital age gap affects the evolution of marital satisfaction over the duration of marriage using household panel data from Australia. We find that men tend to be more satisfied with younger wives and less satisfied with older wives. Interestingly, women likewise tend to be more satisfied with younger husbands and less satisfied with older husbands. Marital satisfaction declines with marital duration for both men and women in differently aged couples relative to those in similarly aged couples. These relative declines erase the initial higher levels of marital satisfaction experienced by men married to younger wives and women married to younger husbands within 6 to 10 years of marriage. A possible mechanism is that differently aged couples are less resilient to negative shocks compared to similarly aged couples, which we find some supportive evidence for.     

Trends in Economic Homogamy: Changes in Assortative Mating or the Division of Labor in Marriage?

The growing economic resemblance of spouses has contributed to rising inequality by increasing the number of couples in which there are two high- or two low-earning partners. The dominant explanation for this trend is increased assortative mating. Previous research has primarily relied on cross-sectional data and thus has been unable to disentangle changes in assortative mating from changes in the division of spouses’ paid labor—a potentially key mechanism given the dramatic rise in wives’ labor supply. We use data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to decompose the increase in the correlation between spouses’ earnings and its contribution to inequality between 1970 and 2013 into parts due to (a) changes in assortative mating, and (b) changes in the division of paid labor. Contrary to what has often been assumed, the rise of economic homogamy and its contribution to inequality is largely attributable to changes in the division of paid labor rather than changes in sorting on earnings or earnings potential. Our findings indicate that the rise of economic homogamy cannot be explained by hypotheses centered on meeting and matching opportunities, and they show where in this process inequality is generated and where it is not.     

Husbands,wives, sons,and daughters: Fertility preferences and the demand for contraception in Ethiopia

Ethiopia, with nearly 65 millionpeople, is the second most populous country in sub-Saharan Africa. Fertility levels are among the highest in the world. Using the matched wife-husband sample from the 1990 National Family and Fertility Survey of Ethiopia we investigate the fertility desires of wives and husbands and the degree to which they are similar, including whether a preference for sons exists. We model the determinants of the desire to limit or space births, and estimate unmet need. Results indicate high levels of concurrence among husbands and wives on reproductive preferences. Where differences exist, husbands are more pronatalist than their wives. Both husbands and wives prefer to have sons and daughters, but more sons overall. Approximately 22% of wives and husbands desire to limit or space births but do not use contraception. More than half of wives and husbands with an unmet need for limiting are paired with a partner who has no such need. Three implications follow from these results: (1) differences in wives' and husbands' son and daughter preferences may help to explain discordant views among couples when it comes to the desire to limit or space births; (2) husbands' overall contribution to wives' unmet need can be substantial in African societies in the early stages of fertility transition; and (3) wives' preferences regarding children and contraception can result in unmet need on the part of husbands, even in highly gender-stratified societies where men are more pronatalist.     

Couple childbearing desires, intentions, and births

Using new panel data from the National Surveys of Families and Households, I investigate the effects of wives’ and husbands’ childbearing desires on their spouses’ intentions, and the effects of spouses’ desires and intentions on subsequent births. The results show clearly that husbands’ desires and intentions influence couples’ births, with approximately equal force to that of wives’ desires and intentions. When couples disagreed about wanting a child, each partners’ intentions were shifted toward not having a child; and disagreement in desires or intentions were reflected in birth rates that were lower than average. These patterns were generally not different for couples with more or less traditional gender roles or attitudes.     

Job characteristics of spouses and their work shifts

This study builds on an earlier finding from the May 1980 Current Population Survey that one-third of full-time dual-earner couples with children in the United States include at least one spouse who works other than a regular day shift. Using the same data source, the relevance of husbands’ and wives’ job characteristics (occupation and industry) on their shift work status are considered, and the nature of the association between husbands’ and wives’ work shifts is explored. Four alternative models are initially posed and tested with log-linear analysis; these models vary in the extent to which a spouse’s shift work status is contingent upon the job characteristics of a husband or wife. None of these models fit the data. A modification of the simplest of the four models (using forward selection) is the best fitting model. It is not symmetrical: the wife’s shift is contingent upon both her occupation and industry and that of her husband, but the husband’s shift is contingent only upon his occupation and industry. There is a relationship between husband’s and wife’s shift, the direction of which depends upon the occupations of both spouses. This study demonstrates the importance of taking a “couple” perspective on shift work among married persons, and the need for models that include interaction effects.     

Men’s Migration and Women’s Fertility in Rural Mozambique

Labor migration profoundly affects households throughout rural Africa. This study looks at how men’s labor migration influences marital fertility in a context where such migration has been massive while its economic returns are increasingly uncertain. Using data from a survey of married women in southern Mozambique, we start with an event-history analysis of birth rates among women married to migrants and those married to nonmigrants. The model detects a lower birth rate among migrants’ wives, which tends to be partially compensated for by an increased birth rate upon cessation of migration. An analysis of women’s lifetime fertility shows that it decreases as the time spent in migration by their husbands accrues. When we compare reproductive intentions stated by respondents with migrant and nonmigrant husbands, we find that migrants’ wives are more likely to want another child regardless of the number of living children, but the difference is significant only for women who see migration as economically benefiting their households. Yet, such women are also significantly more likely to use modern contraception than other women. We interpret these results in light of the debate on enhancing versus disrupting effects of labor migration on families and households in contemporary developing settings.     

Perceptions of "impingement" and marital satisfaction among wives of retired husbands

Initial pilot interviews with women whose husbands were in the first year of retirement revealed that problems of "impingement"--perceptions of husbands as intruders into their worlds-as-lived--were cited, in response to open-ended items, as the most difficult aspect of husbands' retirement. An impingement index, consisting of items constructed from those responses, was administered to the original panel of 83 women whose husbands were now in the fourth year of retirement, and to a new panel of 61 women whose husbands had been retired for one year. Paired T-tests revealed one significant difference in perceptions of impingement between the two groups of wives, and not in the expected direction. Indeed, wives in year 4 were more often bothered by some impingement conditions than wives in year 1, and these were significantly related to self-assessments of marital satisfaction. Results have implications for "adjustment" to life transitions, including situations that may inhibit initiation of adaptive responses, degree of investment in social roles, and issues of expectation.     

Educational Assortative Mating and Income Inequality in Denmark

Many writers have expressed a concern that growing educational assortative mating will lead to greater inequality between households in their earnings or income. In this article, we examine the relationship between educational assortative mating and income inequality in Denmark between 1987 and 2006. Denmark is widely known for its low level of income inequality, but the Danish case provides a good test of the relationship between educational assortative mating and inequality because although income inequality increased over the period we consider, educational homogamy declined. Using register data on the exact incomes of the whole population, we find that change in assortative mating increased income inequality but that these changes were driven by changes in the educational distributions of men and women rather than in the propensity for people to choose a partner with a given level of education.     

What Will You Do If I Say ‘I Do’?: The Effect of the Sex Ratio on Time Use within Taiwanese Married Couples

This paper uses the natural experiment of a large imbalance between men and women of marriageable age in Taiwan in the 1960s to test the hypothesis that higher sex ratios lead to husbands (wives) having a lower (higher) share of couple’s time in leisure and higher (lower) share of the couple’s total work time (employment, commuting, and housework). The sample includes 18,134 Taiwanese couples’ time diaries from 1987, 1990, and 1994. The OLS analysis finds evidence of the predicted effects of the county-level sex ratio on husbands’ and wives’ share of leisure and total work time. The county-level sex ratio’s impact on college-educated husbands’ time use is shown to be larger than the impact on non-college-educated husbands’ time use. A two-stage least square analysis controlling for possible endogeneity of county of residence returns similar findings.     

Individual and couple utility of children

Models specifying the utility of another child as either a couple or an individual experience and incorporating variations in the measurement properties of responses about child utility and expectations are estimated with data from the U.S. Value of Children survey. Full information, maximum likelihood analyses indicate that child utility is an individual experience of wives and husbands rather than a shared couple experience. That is, differences in the measurement properties of wives’ and husbands’ responses do not account entirely for the less than perfect correlations between their responses. These findings demonstrate the importance of estimating errors in measurement in the analysis of wives’ and husbands’ responses about the utility of children, and they challenge the assumption that marital partners share the utility of children.     

Assortative mating among unmarried parents: Implications for ability to pay child support

Assortative mating is of interest to both theoretical and applied social scientists. Previous research is based almost entirely on married couples and parents. In this paper we use data from the NSFG to examine assortative mating among unmarried parents in the US and to examine the robustness of estimates of nonresident fathers' income based on assortative mating assumptions. We find that never married parents are similar, though not identical, to married parents in their choice of partners. White unmarried women are much more likely to have a child with a non-white male than white married women. On the other hand, unmarried women are more likely than married women to have a child with a more educated male. Received: 31 May 2000/Accepted: 2 January 2001     

Does female participation affect the sharing rule?

I give an empirical answer to whether the sharing patterns of household consumption of participating and nonparticipating wives differ. I use the basic collective model conditioned on female participation to identify the sharing patterns. Using Spanish data, I test the model assumptions and I find significant differences. Nonparticipating wives get larger transfers from their husbands than participating wives. However, while participating wives with at least an equal total share keep a part of their increase in wages for their own consumption, nonparticipating wives cannot benefit from having better labor opportunities. These results complement evidence about intrahousehold distribution of home time.