Field-of-Study Homogamy

Alena Bičáková and Stepan Jurajda

No 9844, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper reports evidence on the strong tendency of the college educated to match with partners who graduated in the same field of study – a dimension of assortative matching that has been overlooked thus far. We employ Labor Force Survey data covering most EU countries to measure the extent of field-of-study homogamy in prevailing married and cohabiting couples within several years of college graduation. We find that field-of-study homogamy increases almost immediately after graduation to reach very high levels, especially for spouses working in the same industry, and that it varies dramatically across countries. Graduates in Social Sciences display a particularly strong tendency towards homogamy and also have the highest matching theory-implied match gains from homogamous matches.

Keywords: field-of-study homogamy; college graduates; marriage and cohabitation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I23 J13 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 pages
Date: 2016-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Field-of-Study Homogamy (2017)
Working Paper: Field-of-Study Homogamy (2016)
Working Paper: Field-of-Study Homogamy (2016)
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