Volume 14 - Article 17 | Pages 405–428  

Changes in educational assortative mating in contemporary Spain

By Albert Esteve, Clara Cortina

Abstract

This article analyses patterns and trends in educational assortative mating of the Spanish women born between 1920 and 1969 using data from the 2001 Spanish Census. By means of loglinear models we examine the following issues: i) intensity and changes in educational assortative mating patterns; ii) crossing barriers across educational thresholds and iii) degree of symmetry between male and female patterns.
Results show that education matters in the composition of unions: people tend to marry assortatively according to their education. However this pattern clearly differs across cohorts and between educational groups, being higher for the extreme categories. The most notable trends are 1) the increasing intensity of homogamy among the more educated and 2) the incipient extinction of the traditional female hypergamic pattern.

Author's Affiliation

Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research

Black–white intermarriage in global perspective
Volume 49 - Article 28

Demographic change and increasing late singlehood in East Asia, 2010–2050
Volume 43 - Article 46

The living arrangements of Moroccans in Spain: Generation and time
Volume 40 - Article 37

Mixed marriages between immigrants and natives in Spain: The gendered effect of marriage market constraints
Volume 39 - Article 1

Change and continuity in the fertility of unpartnered women in Latin America, 1980–2010
Volume 38 - Article 51

The change in single mothers’ educational gradient over time in Spain
Volume 36 - Article 61

The contributions of childbearing within marriage and within consensual union to fertility in Latin America, 1980-2010
Volume 34 - Article 29

Towards a Geography of Unmarried Cohabitation in the Americas
Volume 30 - Article 59

Disentangling how educational expansion did not increase women's age at union formation in Latin America from 1970 to 2000
Volume 28 - Article 3

Most recent similar articles in Demographic Research

Ultra-Orthodox fertility and marriage in the United States: Evidence from the American Community Survey
Volume 49 - Article 29    | Keywords: age at first marriage, American Community Survey (ACS), fertility, Judaism, marriage, religion, total fertility rate (TFR), Ultra-Orthodox Judaism

Advanced or postponed motherhood? Migrants’ and natives’ gap between ideal and actual age at first birth in Spain
Volume 49 - Article 22    | Keywords: actual age at first birth, age at arrival, fertility, ideal age at first birth, international migration, motherhood, Spain

Partial fertility recuperation in Spain two years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic
Volume 49 - Article 17    | Keywords: COVID-19, fertility, recuperation, Spain

The gender gap in schooling outcomes: A cohort study of young men and women in India
Volume 48 - Article 33    | Keywords: cohort studies, educational attainment, gender, India, secondary education

Subnational variations in births and marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic in South Korea
Volume 48 - Article 30    | Keywords: COVID-19, fertility, Korea, marriage