Full Citation

Title: The Reversal of the Gender Gap in Education and its Impact on Union Formation: the End of Hypergamy

Citation Type: Conference Paper

Publication Year: 2011

ISBN:

ISSN:

DOI:

NSFID:

PMCID:

PMID:

Abstract: The educational expansion that most countries in the world have witnessed in recent decades has been accompanied by a reduction of the gender gap in educational attainment. The consequences of this unprecedented phenomenon have yet to beexplored in many of the dimensions of social life. In this paper we examine the impact that the advances in women's education has had on gender symmetry in union formationand, more specifically, on female educational hypergamy (women's tendency to marry men with a higher educational attainment than themselves). We use newly integrated IPUMS census micro-data from 103 samples and taken in 38 countries. Results from multilevel linear regression models show that female educational hypergamy is lower in societies with a lower gender gap in education and that where the gender gap reverses female hypogamy becomes the norm. Thus, if current trends in education are to continue, the pervasiveness of hypergamy will tend to disappear.

User Submitted?: No

Authors: Esteve, Albert; Permanyer, Iaki; Garcia, Joan

Conference Name: Population Association of America

Publisher Location: Washington, D.C.

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Education, Family and Marriage, Gender

Countries: