New Evidence on the Causes of Educational Homogamy

Abstract

Educational homogamy is an important but poorly understood source of inequality. This paper analyzes a group of men and women who do not meet their spouses in school, are not sorted by education at work, and have no financial incentives to marry educated spouses. Nevertheless, movie actors show a strong tendency to sort positively on education in marriage. These findings suggest that male and female preferences alone induce considerable sorting on education in marriage and that men and women have very strong preferences for nonfinancial partner traits correlated with years of educationEducational Homogamy; Sorting; Inequality; Marriage