Status in Motion: Within-Couple Trajectories of Subjective Social Standing and Life Satisfaction in China

• In Event: Family Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 11: Homogamy, Heterogamy, and Marriage

Abstract

Research on within-couple inequality has primarily focused on disparities in education, earnings, and occupational status, typically treating spousal differences as static characteristics. Yet marriage is a dynamic institution in which partners’ social positions may shift together, or apart, over time. Building on linked-lives and subjective stratification perspectives, this study conceptualizes subjective social status (SSS), i.e., individuals’ perceived rank in the social hierarchy, as a dyadic and developmental process embedded in marriage. We examine how husbands’ and wives’ perceived status trajectories unfold over time and how distinct patterns of within-couple change are associated with psychological well-being.

Using seven waves (2010–2022) of the China Family Panel Studies and a sample of 1,784 continuously married couples, we apply dyadic latent class growth analysis to identify couple-level trajectories of SSS. Four patterns emerge: persistent hypergamy (47.5%), characterized by a stable husband advantage; stable high homogamy (23.4%) and stable low homogamy (11.6%), reflecting enduring similarity at high or low levels. Notably, we also observe diverging hypogamy (17.5%), in which wives’ perceived status increases more rapidly than husbands’, resulting in widening gaps. Subsequent analyses using the BCH method indicate that overall, individuals’ own status levels and trajectories are more consequential for well-being than the relative status gap between partners. A key exception is that women in persistently hypergamous unions report lower life satisfaction, which suggests that enduring perceptions of lower status within marriage may undermine women’s psychological well-being.

By illuminating the longitudinal development of subjective social status within couples and its psychological implications, this study advances our understanding of gender dynamics and within-couple inequality in family systems.

Authors

• Nanqian Chen, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

• Lei Jin, Chinese University of Hong Kong