Impact of Educational and Religious Homogamy on Marital Stability

Kornelius Kraft () and Stefanie Neimann ()
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Kornelius Kraft: University of Dortmund
Stefanie Neimann: University of Dortmund

No 4491, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Abstract: Using a rich panel data set from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we test whether spouses who are similar to each other in certain respects have a lower probability of divorce than dissimilar spouses. We focus on the effect of homogamy with respect to education and church attendance. Gary Becker's theory of marriage predicts that usually, positive assortative mating is optimal. Our results, however, suggest that homogamy per se does not increase marital stability but higher education and religiousness.

Keywords: divorce; homogamy; education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 J12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
Date: 2009-10

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