Changes in educational assortative mating in contemporary Spain

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)...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Clara Cortina, Albert Esteve
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research 2006-05-01
Series:Demographic Research
Online Access:http://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol14/17/
Description
Summary: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.
ISSN:1435-9871