Social Class Heterogamy and Marital Success: A Study of the Empirical Adequacy of a Textbook Generalization

Glenn, Norval D.; Hoppe, Sue Keir; Weiner, D. H.

doi:10.2307/799991

Cited by 18 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…The notion that heterogamy increases the probability of the marriage ending in divorce is a 'textbook hypothesis' in the social sciences and is widely believed to be true in the general public (Glenn et al 1974). Several designs have been used to test the hypothesis.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Intermarriage and the risk of divorce in the Netherlands: The effects of differences in religion and in nationality, 1974–94

2005

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A textbook hypothesis about divorce is that heterogamous marriages are more likely to end in divorce than homogamous marriages. We analyse vital statistics on the population of the Netherlands, which provide a unique and powerful opportunity to test this hypothesis. All marriages formed between 1974 and 1984 (nearly 1 million marriages) are traced in the divorce records and multivariate logistic regression models are used to analyse the effects on divorce of heterogamy in religion and national origin. Our analyses confirm the hypothesis for marriages that cross the Protestant-Catholic or the Jewish-Gentile boundary. Heterogamy effects are weaker for marriages involving Protestants or unaffiliated persons. Marriages between Dutch and other nationalities have a higher risk of divorce, the more so the greater the cultural differences between the two groups. Overall, the evidence supports the view that, in the Netherlands, new group boundaries are more difficult to cross than old group boundaries.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…What does the evidence show to date? The heterogamy hypothesis has been studied for a range of characteristics, including education (Tynes 1990), social class (Glenn et al 1974;Jalovaara 2003), religion, and ethnicity. Our focus is on religion and ethnicity and we therefore limit our overview to these two.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intermarriage and the risk of divorce in the Netherlands: The effects of differences in religion and in nationality, 1974–94

2005

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“…Heterogamy (i.e. the marriage of dissimilar spouses) has often been viewed as a source of marital instability, despite a shortage of empirical evidence in support of this hypothesis (Glenn et al, 1974). The hypothesis that party political heterogamy generates marital conflict would seem as plausible as any other hypothesis focusing on a specific form of heterogamy.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Party Political Homogamy in Great Britain

Lampard

1997

European Sociological Review

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Richard Lampard is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Warwick. Much of his research has been in the area of marriage and divorce, but he also has research interests in social stratification and social statistics (especially the analysis of contingency tables and of event history data). He is currently working on an ESRC-funded project looking at the remarriage process.ABSTRACT This paper focuses on husbands' and wives' party political identifications in combination. There is a high level of party political homogamy in Great Britain (i.e. spouses tend to share the same party political identification). Statistical analyses show that levels of homogamy vary according to strength of party political identification, parental homogamy, age and marital status. Levels of party political similarity are also shown to differ between marriage and other social relationships, and between first marriages and remarriages. Attitudes towards homogamy are shown to vary with age.The implications of these findings for theories relating to the origins of homogamy and to the consequences of heterogamy are considered. Broadly speaking, the findings indicate that party political homogamy is a consequence of demographic constraints, utility-maximising choices, and responses to cultural norms.

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Spouse similarity in American and Swedish couples

1980

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A very similar pattern of homogamy was found in samples of American and Swedish couples for physical, social, and behavioral variables. In the Swedish sample, there were only minor differences in assortment, i.e., in similarity to spouses, between MZ and DZ twins. Although our data are not conclusive on this point, there was an indication that the observed similarity of spouses for most variables is due to initial assortment rather than to convergence of phenotypes after initial contact. Exceptions are that spouses do appear to converge for highly plastic variables such as alcohol consumption and amount of social activity.

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Social Class Heterogamy and Marital Success: A Study of the Empirical Adequacy of a Textbook Generalization

Cited by 18 publications

References 9 publications

Intermarriage and the risk of divorce in the Netherlands: The effects of differences in religion and in nationality, 1974–94

Intermarriage and the risk of divorce in the Netherlands: The effects of differences in religion and in nationality, 1974–94

Party Political Homogamy in Great Britain

Spouse similarity in American and Swedish couples

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