Pathways to Educational Homogamy in Marital and Cohabiting Unions

PWP-CCPR-2005-016

Abstract

Cohabitors tend to be less homogamous than married couples with respect to ascribed characteristics such as race/ethnicity, religion, and age, and more homogamous than married couples with respect to achieved characteristics such as earnings and employment. But there is considerable theoretical and empirical disagreement about differences in educational homogamy by union type. I use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) and the June Current Population Survey (CPS) to illustrate how estimates of educational homogamy vary depending on the sample used and the point in couples’ relationships when homogamy is measured. I find that cohabitors are less likely to be educationally homogamous than married couples overall, but these differences are not apparent when cohabiting and marital unions begin. Instead, the results suggest that differences in educational homogamy by union type are driven by selective exits from marriage and cohabitation rather than by differences in partner choice. Marriages that cross educational boundaries are particularly likely to end. These findings suggest that cohabitors’ greater emphasis on egalitarianism and economic equality do not translate into greater educational homogamy, and that education behaves more like an ascribed characteristic than an achieved characteristic with respect to differences in couple resemblance by union type.