Sorting by Tier and Field: Horizontal Stratification in Higher Education and Assortative Mating in China

• In Event: Sociology of Population Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 6. Education

Abstract

China's rapid higher education expansion has diversified universities along two axes of horizontal stratification—institutional tier (junior college, regular bachelor's, and elite/985-211) and academic major field (humanities, social sciences, and STEM)—yet whether and how these dimensions jointly shape educational assortative mating remains unknown. Drawing on two nationally representative surveys (CHIP 2018 and CFPS 2010–2022), I analyze 28,829 married couples using log-linear models to decompose spousal educational sorting by tier, field, and their interaction. Three findings emerge. First, homogamy intensity increases monotonically across institutional tiers, with elite university graduates exhibiting the strongest same-tier closure, consistent with the Effectively Maintained Inequality thesis. Second, field of study constitutes an independent dimension of marital sorting above and beyond tier effects: after controlling for tier-based homogamy, same-field marriage remains highly significant, with humanities graduates showing the strongest within-field pairing tendencies. Critically, the two dimensions of horizontal stratification operate additively rather than interactively—the marriage premium for elite STEM credentials equals the sum of the tier and field premiums separately, indicating that marriage market actors process institutional prestige and field affiliation as parallel, independent signals rather than as bundled credentials. Third, cross-field marriages exhibit a significant asymmetric complementarity: STEM men are more likely to marry humanities or social science women than the reverse, consistent with a gendered exchange of economic capital (STEM earnings premium) for cultural capital (humanities socialization). Together, these findings establish horizontal stratification in higher education as a multidimensional and consequential axis of marital sorting in contemporary China.

Author

• Wenbo HU, University of Hong Kong