The Reversed Gender Gap in Education and Assortative Mating in Europe

Abstract

While in the past men received more education than women, the gender gap in education has turned around: in recent years, more highly educated women than highly educated men are reaching the reproductive ages. Using data from the European Social Survey (rounds 1-6), we investigate the implications of this reversed gender gap for educational assortative mating. We fit multilevel multinomial regression models to predict the proportions of men and women living with a partner of a given level of education, contingent on respondents' own educational attainment and on the cohort-specific sex ratio among the population with tertiary education at the country level. We find that highly educated women tend to partner more often ''downwards'' with less educated men, rather than remaining single more often. Medium educated women are found to partner less often ''upwards'' with highly educated men. For men, there is no evidence that they are more likely to partner with highly educated women. Rather, they are found to be living single more often. In sum, women's advantage in higher education has affected mating patterns in important ways: while women previously tended to form unions with men who were at least as highly educated as themselves, they now tend to live with men who are at most as highly educated. Along the way, advanced education became a bonus on the mating market for women as well as for men.

Pathways to marital and non-marital first birth: the role of his and her education

“…Our focus here is on assortative mating by education, because education may affect individual economic potential, as well as individual tastes, preferences, and lifestyles (Blossfeld 2009). While educational homogamy remains the most common mating pattern in Europe (Blossfeld and Timm 2003;Hamplova 2009;De Hauw et al 2017), marked changes in heterogamous couples have occurred. Recent studies have shown that unions in which the man is more educated than the woman (hypergamy) are now less common than unions in which the woman is more educated than the man (hypogamy) (Esteve et al 2012;Grow and Van Bavel 2015;De Hauw et al 2017).…”

Intramarital Status Differences Across Africa's Educational Expansion

“…As access to education becomes more prevalent for men and women—in tandem or at different paces—intramarital differences in educational status also change. Substantial research from various geographic contexts (Blossfeld, ; De Hauw et al, ; Esteve, García‐Román, & Permanyer, ; Esteve et al, ; Mare, ; Schwartz & Mare, ; Smits & Park, ; Smits, Ultee, & Lammers, ) has provided insight into, for example, the increasingly similar education of wives and husbands in the United States (Mare, ) and the withdrawal from marriage among highly educated women in Japan (Raymo & Iwasawa, ). We extend this research into sub‐Saharan Africa, a context characterized by unusual heterogeneity in educational trends, encompassing contexts where attending secondary school has long been typical and contexts where attending any school at all remains exceptional (Frye & Lopus, ).…”

“…Educational characteristics influence a wide range of demographic phenomena, including whether, when, and whom we marry. In settings where cultural norms dictate a distaste for pairings between lower status men and higher status women, a person's years of schooling will influence the likelihood or necessity of such a match (De Hauw, Grow, & Van Bavel, 2017;Raymo & Iwasawa, 2005). At the household level, intramarital status differentials influence household decision making (Pyke & Adams, 2010), family planning (Behrman, 2016), and intimate partner violence (Behrman, 2018;Jewkes, 2002).…”

Partner market opportunities and union formation over the life course—A comparison of different measures

“…First, the distribution of educational attainment has become more equal for women and men in many countries (OECD, ). In fact, in Germany, more women than men attain an educational level that entitles them to tertiary education (“Abitur” and “Fachabitur”) (Helbig, ; see De Hauw, Grow, & Van Bavel, , Esteve et al, , van Bavel, for further consequences of the reversed gender gap in education). Second, men and women of equal educational attainment share selective educational meeting contexts for a longer time (Blossfeld, ).…”