Educational Assortative Mating and Self-rated Health: Evidence from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study

• In Event: 546 - Section on Sociology of Population Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 07. Education and Health

Abstract

Although it is a well-established fact that the health benefits of marriage only extend to high quality marriages involving highly educated spouses, there is little empirical work investigating how spousal choice decisions and the resulting educational resemblance between spouses influence health. This study documents health differences according to husband and wife’s joint levels of education and assesses the role differential selection, marital quality, socioeconomic conditions, and health behaviors in generating health disparities across groups. We find that individuals in unions with higher joint levels of spouses’ education are healthier than those with lower joint levels of spouses’ education. Among spouses with small educational differentials, individuals in educationally hypogamous unions (wife > husband) are healthier than those in hypergamous unions (wife < husband). Among spouses with large educational differentials, individuals in educationally hypergamous unions (husband > wife) have better health than their counterparts in hypogamous unions (wife > husband).

Authors

• Kate Hee Young Choi, University of Western Ontario

• Amy Hsin, City University of New York-Queens College