The Proximate Determinants of Educational Homogamy

Abstract

This paper adapts the population balancing equation to develop a framework for studying the
proximate determinants of educational homogamy. Using data from the National Longitudinal
Survey of Youth on a cohort of women born between 1957 and 1965, we decompose the odds of
homogamy in prevailing marriages into four proximate determinants: (1) first marriages, (2) first
and later marital dissolutions, (3) remarriages, and (4) educational attainment after marriage. The
odds of homogamy among new first marriages are lower than among prevailing marriages, but
not because of selective marital dissolution, remarriage, and educational attainment after
marriage, as has been speculated. Prevailing marriages are more likely to be educationally
homogamous than new first marriages because of the accumulation of homogamous first
marriages in the stock of marriages. First marriages overwhelmingly account for the odds of
homogamy in prevailing marriages in this cohort. Marital dissolutions, remarriages, and
educational upgrades after marriage have relatively small and offsetting effects. Our results
suggest that, despite the high prevalence of divorce, remarriage, and continued schooling after
marriage in the United States, the key to understanding trends in educational homogamy lies
primarily in variation in assortative mating into first marriage.