Do the formative aspects of education really matter for educational assortative mating? Cues from a natural experiment

• Individuals tend to partner with people of a similar educational level as themselves. According to the matching hypothesis, exposure to education leads to similarity in taste and cultural cognitive schemas, causing educationally similar partners to form unions. In this study, I ask if such formative content of education matters for educational homogamy, net of other forces. Evaluating this claim is often difficult because educational level also beget human resources and because marriage markets are structured by educational level - aspects which also lead to educational homogamy. I approach this issue using a semi-experimental design that tentatively holds constant marriage markets and human capital related to education. Using a national reform, I compare the educational assortative mating of upper secondary vocational students who studied under a theoretical curriculum to that of vocational students not exposed to a theoretical curriculum. The reform provides variability in formative education. Yet, it induces no variation in competitive human capital and marriage markets, as students obtain comparable human capital within the same standard upper secondary track. Therefore, effects may be attributed to matching on formative content of the added theoretical curriculum. Before and after adjusting for selection, I find no effect of an added theoretical curriculum on partnering. The results are discussed in terms of the ambiguity of formative education as an explanation for educational assortative mating.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi -- Sociologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology -- Sociology (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Partnering

Educational Homogamy

Sweden

Sociology

sociologi

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

ovr (subject category)