Who Marries Whom?: Educational Systems as Marriage Markets in Modern Societies PDF
Preview Who Marries Whom?: Educational Systems as Marriage Markets in Modern Societies
WhoMarriesWhom? European Studies of Population VOLUME 12 The book series EuropeanStudies ofPopulation (ESPO)aimsatdisseminating population and family research,with special relevance for Europe. It may analyse past, present and/or future trends, as well as their determinants and consequences. Thecharacterof the series is multidisciplinary, including formal demographic analyses,as wellas social,economic and/orhistoricalpopulationandfamilystudies. Thefollowingtypesofstudiesareofprimaryimportance:(a)internationallyrelevantstudies,(b)Europeancomparative studies,(c) innovativetheoreticaland methodologicalstudies,and(d)policy-relevantscientificstudies.Theseriesmay includemonographs,editedvolumesandreference works. ThebookseriesispublishedundertheauspicesoftheEuropeanAssociaitonforPopulationStudies(EAPS) EditorialBoard: CharlotteHOlm,Bundesinstitutt\"urBev\"olkerungsforschung,(BiB),Wiesbaden,Germany ThereseJacobs,PopulationandFamilyStudyCentre(CBGS),Brussels,Belgium JaninaJozwiak,EuropeanAssociationforPopulation Studies(EAPS) NicoKeilman,StatisticsNorway,Oslo,Norway MiroslavMocura.PopulationActivitiesUnit,(ECE,UnitedNations),Geneva,Switzerland MauraMisiti,IstitutodiRecerchesullaPopolazione(lRP),Rorna,Italy Jean-MarcRohrbasser,Institut Nationald'EtudesDemographiqucs(lNED),Paris,Prance ZsolltSpider,NKI,Budapest.Hungary FransWillekellS,NetherlandsInterdisciplinaryDemographicInstitute(NIDI),TheHague,Netherlands AdvisoryBoard: lnesAlberdi,Universidad Complutense, Madrid,Spain,Herwig Birg,(lnstitut fur Bevolkerungsforschung, Bielefeld, Germany),GraziellaCaselli,(UniversitadeglistudidiRoma"LaSapienza",Rome,Italy),DavidColeman,(Department ofAppliedSocialStudiesandSocial Research,OxfordUniversity,United Kingdom),Jack Habib,(BrookdateInstitute, Jerusalem, Israel), Kalev Katus, (Estonian Interuniversity Population Research Centre, Talinn, Estonia), Maire Ni Bhrolchain,(DepartmentofSocialStatistics,Southampton,UnitedKingdom),VitaPruran,(DanishNationalInstituteof Social Research, Copenhagen, Denmark), Serge Scherbov; (Population Research Centre, Groningen University, Netherlands), David Sly, (Florida State University, Tallahassee, USA), Tapani valkonen, (University of Helsinki, Finland),JamesVaupel,(Max PlanckInstituteforDemographicResearch,Rostock,Germany). EditorialOffices: GijsBeets NetherlandsInterdisciplinary DemographicInstitute(NIDI) POBox11650 NL-2502ARTheHague,Netherlands Pbone.: +31703565200 Fax.: +3I703647187 E-mail:[email protected] TechnicalEditors: Jacqueline\'(mderHelm Thetitlespublishedillthisseriesarelistedattheendofthisvolume Who Marries Whom? Educational Systems as Marriage Markets in Modern Societies edited by HANS-PETER BLOSSFELD Olto Friedrich University Bamberg, Germany and ANDREAS TIMM Bremen University, Germany SPRINGER -SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V. A c.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-1-4020-1803-9 ISBN 978-94-007-1065-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-1065-8 Printed an acid-free paper Ali Rights Reserved © 2003 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 2003 Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover Ist edition 2003 No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, Of transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording Of otherwise, without written permis sion from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system. for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. CONTENTS Preface vii About the Editors ix About theContributers ix EducationalSystems asMarriageMarketsinModemSocieties: AConceptualFramework Hans-PeterBlossfeldandAndreasTimm 2 Who Marries Whom inWest Germany? 19 Hans-PeterBlossfeldandAndreasTimm 3 Who Marries Whom inFlemish Belgium? 37 Martine Corijn 4 Who MarriesWhom inFrance? 57 DominiqueGoux andEric Maurin 5 The When andWhom ofFirst MarriageinTheNetherlands 79 Nan DirkDe Graaf WilmaSmeenk, Wout UlteeandAndreasTimm 6 Who Marries Whom inItaly? 113 FabrizioBernardi 7 Who Marries Whom inSpain? 141 Marfa JoseGonza1ezLOpez 8 Who Marries Whom inGreat Britain? 171 Tak Wing Chan and BrendanHalpin 9 Who Marries Whom intheUnited States? 195 AndreasTimm,Hans-PeterBlossfeldandTeresa Lankuttis 10 Who Moves Togetherwith Whom inDenmark? 213 Seren Leth-Serensen v VI II Who Marries Whom in Sweden? 235 UrsulaHenz andJan 0. Jonsson 12 Who Marries Whom in Hungary? 267 ErzsdietBukodiand PeterRObert 13 Who Marries Whom in Slovenia? 295 Sonja DobnicandNevenka CemigojSadar 14 Two DecadesofEducationalIntermarriagein Israel 315 Haya Stierand YossiShavit 15 AssortativeMating inCross-NationalComparison: ASummaryofResultsandConclusions 331 Hans-PeterBlossfeldandAndreas Timm PREFACE Marriage and social inequality are closely interrelated. Marriage isdependent on the structure of marriage markets, and marriage patterns have consequences for social inequality.This book demonstrates that in most modern societies the educa tional system has become an increasingly important marriage market, particularly for those who are highly qualified. Educational expansion in general and the rising educational participation ofwomen in particular unintentionally have increased the rate of "assortative meeting" and assortative mating across birth cohorts. Rising educational homogamy means that social inequality is further enhanced through marriage because better (and worse) educated single men and women pool their economic andsociocultural advantages (anddisadvantages) withincouples. In this book we study the changing role ofthe educational system as amarriage market in modern societies from a cross-national comparative perspective. Using life-history data from a broad range of industrialized countries and longitudinal statistical models, we analyze the process ofspouse selection in the life courses of single men and women, step by step. The countries included in this book vary widely in important characteristics such as demographic behavior and institutional characteristics.The lifecourse approach explicitly recognizes the dynamic nature of partner decisions, the importance of educational roles and institutional circum stances asyoung men andwomen move through their lifepaths, andthecumulation ofadvantages and disadvantages experienced by individuals. The book consists of thirteen country-specific studies, each conducted by researchers who have an inti mate understanding ofthe country in question. Most studies employed nationally representative data, covering cohorts of men and women over a broad historical period. As far as possible, very similar statistical analyses were used. But we pre ferred to avoid complete standardization ofmethod because both the educational system andthe ageatmarriage vary fromone country to another and overtime. The book is theoretically driven and combines demographic approaches with rational choice theory toexplainassortative mating. The initial idea for this cross-national comparative project was stimulated by empirical results from an event history analysis carried out on West Germany.This research clearly indicated thateducational expansion hasincreased therateofeduca tional homogamy inGermany.There has been an increasing closure ofsocial struc ture and social networks asanunintended consequence ofeducational expansion.In addition, we found that in Germany social origin has a strong effect on educational homogamy. There have been strong direct and indirect effects offather's education onmarriage patterns. The primary aim inour thirteen-nation comparison was to check the generaliza bilityofourfindings andinterpretations forGermany.Taking intoaccount theinevi- vii viii table constraints of data availability and expertise, we tried to include countries varying widely in important characteristics, such as educational systems, family tradition, and the extent to which the roles ofmen and women have undergone a progressive transformation. The countries included in our comparison are West Germany, theNetherlands, Flemish Belgium (Flanders), France, Italy, Spain, Great Britain, Denmark, Sweden, Hungary, Slovenia, the United States ofAmerica and Israel. As editors ofthe book and organizers ofthe cross-national research project, we would like to thank all the contributors for their fruitful cooperation and for the enormous effort they put into their analyses and country-chapters. We tried to use comparable data and made a commitment to apply a common research design to study the changes in "assortative meeting" and "assortative mating". However, the contributors did not simply help us carry out a previously designed analysis. As clearly indicated bythewealthofinformation inthecountry-specific chapters, much ofthework inthisbookrepresentsthecreative contributions ofourcollaborators. We are grateful to Gijs Beets who made very valuable suggestions on earlier drafts ofthe manuscript and supported its publication as a volume in the European Studies ofPopulation series. Allthe chapters inthebook were peer-reviewed by the members oftheinternational group andrevised several times.They werealsoevalu atedby twoanonymous Kluwer Academic Publishers reviewers.We arevery grate ful for their thoughtful comments and constructive suggestions which improved the qualityofthisbook. The majorfinancial support forthecomparative project,inparticular forthejoint workshop held in Bremen, was a grant from the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) for the Sfb-186 research project "Household Dynamics and Social Inequality" at the University of Bremen. During the final stages ofpreparing thisbook, support wasalso provided by agrant from theVolks wagen Foundation (Volkswagen Stiftung) for the GLOBALIFE project at the Uni versityofBielefeld andtheOttoFriedrich University Bamberg. Our thanksgo toour former colleagues at theUniversity ofBremen for their su perb collegial support. Inparticular, we wish to thank Faith Dasko who,as anative speaker,copy-edited theentiremanuscript withgreatsensitivity.WealsothankJulie Winkler-Vinjukova, who helped us organize the workshop, and improved the Eng lish ofseveral chapters with great care. Invarious stages oftheproject, our student assistants, Teresa Lankuttis, Lars Borchert, Thorsten Schneider and Ruben van Gaalen, supported us with commitment and professionalism in coordinating the projectandpreparing thetypescript. Hans-PeterBlossfeld OttoFriedrich University Bamberg AndreasTimm University ofBremen ABOUT THE EDITORS Hans-Peter Blossfeld has been professor and chair of sociology I at Bamberg University since September 2002. He was full professor ofsociology and political sciences at the European University Institute in Florence (1989-92), professor of sociology(chair insocial statistics and sociologicalresearch methods) attheUniver sity ofBremen (1992-98) and professorofsociology (chair in theory and empirical analysis ofsocial structures and economic systems) at the University ofBielefeld (1998-2002). Since 1990 he has been editor ofthe European Sociological Review. He has published 15books and over 120articles on social inequality, youth, family, and educational sociology, labor market research, demography, social stratification and mobility, the modem methods of quantitative social research, and statistical methods for longitudinal data analysis. He directs the GLOBALIFE project at the OttoFriedrich UniversityBamberg (www.uni-bamberg.de/sowi/soziologie-i/). Andreas Timm studied sociologyand lawatthe UniversityofBremen. Hismain interests are research in family formation, educational sociology, social inequality, andmethods forlongitudinal analysis. ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTERS Fabrizio Bernardi, took hisdoctorate insociologyandsocial research in 1998at the University ofTrento. From 1998 to 2001 he worked as assistant professor of sociology at the University of Bielefeld. Since 2001 he isprofessorofsocial struc ture in the Department ofSociology II ofthe Universidad Nacional de Educaci6n a Distancia(UNED),Madrid,Spain. Erzsebet Bukodi is head ofthe Section of Social Stratification within the De partment of Social Statistics ofthe Hungarian Central Statistical Office, Budapest. She has fmished her PhD in sociology in 2002 about marriage timing and homog amy in Hungary. Her research interests also involve educational inequalities and different aspects of life course analysis. She is a participant of a research project aiming to develop a new social indicatorsystem in Hungary. Her recent studies has been published in European Sociological Review and in H.-P. Blossfeld and S. Drobnic (eds.): Careers of couples in contemporary societies (Oxford University Press, 2001). NevenkaCemigojSadar, PhD inpsychology,is aseniorresearcherand anasso ciate professorofsocial psychologyat the FacultyofSocial Sciences, Universityof ix x Ljubljana.Hermain areas ofresearch are: changing lifepatterns,genderdivisions in paid and unpaid work in relation to social policy measures and quality of life in various life spheres. She lectures careermanagementon post-graduate program and is amentor to graduate and post-graduate students. She participated inseveralinter national comparativeresearch projects. Tak Wing Chan is a university lecturer in sociology and a fellow ofNew Col lege, UniversityofOxford. Hiscurrentresearch interests include social stratification and mobility,and family and thelifecourse. Martine Corijn is currently working at the Center for Population and Family Studies - CBGS - in Brussels. Her main research interests are family and fertility behavior and familypolicies. Nan DirkDe Graafisprofessorofsociology, DepartmentofSociology,PO Box 9104, 6500 Nijmegen, the Netherlands. He is also a member ofthe research school rcs and an associate member of Nuffield College, Oxford. He published various articles on the consequences ofinequality (e.g.political, cultural,and health conse quences), the impact ofcultural and economic resources on educational attainment, and the sociologyofreligion. SonjaDrobnicisprofessorofsociologyatthe UniversityofErfurt.Her main re search interests include life-course research and gender, in particular employment dynamics ofcouples and retirementin a household context, as well as issues in so cialstratification,comparativeresearch,and longitudinalresearchmethods. Brendan Halpin lectures in the DepartmentofSociology, University ofLimer ick, Ireland. He was previously at the Institute for Social and Economic Research, Essex, and Nuffield College, Oxford. Core interests include the analysis ofsocial processes -marriage, divorce, social mobilityand the labor market- from a longitu dinalperspective. Jan O. Jonsson isprofessorofsociologyatthe SwedishInstitutefor Social Re search, StockholmUniversity. His researchisin social stratificationand educational inequality, family studies, and young people's living conditions. He is the co-author ofCanEducationBe Equalized? (WestviewPress, 1996) and Cradle to Grave.Life Course Change in Modem Sweden (Sociologypress, 2001). He is also responsible forthe SwedishLevel-of-Living Surveys. Teresa Lankuttis, born 1970 in Hamburg, finished her studies ofsociology at Bremen University in 2002. She worked in the Special Collaborative Center 186 "Status Passages and Risks in the Life Course", participating mainly in project B6 ''Household Dynamics and Social Inequality." Findings ofher thesis "Remarriage After Divorce In Germany" have beenpublished in the Zeitschrift fiir Familienfor schung (Journal forFamilyResearch) in2003. Seren Leth-Serensen is a sociologist employed as senior advisor at Statistics Denmark. Currently his office is at the University ofAarhus. His responsibilities include managing projects for outsideresearchers.His main interest is labormarket issues and family changes in Denmark. His has taken part in establishing the so calledIDA-database.This alongitudinaldatabase forpersonsand firms inDenmark. Maria JoseGonzQIezLopezisafull-time lecturerin the DepartmentofPolitical and Social Sciencesatthe UniversitatPompeuFabra(Barcelona) and hasaPh.D. in
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