Micro-educational Assortative Mating

• In Event: 523 - Section on Sociology of Education Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 22. Teachers, Postsecondary Education, and Career Choices

Abstract

This paper introduces a new “micro-educational” classification to the study of educational assortative mating capturing both hierarchical and horizontal forms of educational differentiation. Previous research tend to use highly aggregated hierarchical or gradational measures of education neglecting distinctive socialization and preference patterns found within specific types of educations. We advance the research on assortative mating by separating men and women and by using a much more detailed educational classification than normally applied (micro-educations). Taking advantage of rich Danish administrative data the paper investigates a) whether homogamy is not only linked to levels of education but also to particular types of education; b) how well different educational closure mechanisms explain assortative mating (i.e., aggregated vs. disaggregated measures of education); and c) whether mating patterns differ for men and women. We use a topological model that takes into account several measures of educational homogamy patterns: Gradational (by returns to education), categorical (5-level), horizontal (field of study), and our disaggregated (60 micro-educational groupings). Results show that, even when we control for the other measures, the disaggregated measure (micro-educations) still explain a substantial part of the changes in educational homogamy patterns for 45-year-olds from 1981-2010. Among the micro-educations, older professions such as law, engineering and medicine display decreasing mating patterns while newer professions, such as the creative arts programs, social science and architects increase their propensity to be educationally homogamous. In addition, women have higher odds than men of being educational homogamous at the university and university college level.

Authors

• Stefan Bastholm Andrade, SFI - The Danish National Centre for Social Research

• Jens Peter Thomsen, SFI - The Danish National Centre for Social Research