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Abstract:
Research on socioeconomic homogamy was developed by stratification researchers who used marriage patterns to describe how open stratification systems are. In cross-national studies primary concern on marriage homogamy lies in examination of commonality and differences in their social structures. Following large-scale international studies we use the European Social Survey data 2004-2005 to examine the association between spouses' educational levels. Loglinear analysis is applied to assess: (i) degree of association between education of spouses, (ii) patterns of barriers to intermarriage, (iii) variation in homogamy for partners with the same education for primary, uncompleted secondary, secondary, and university levels, and (iv) asymmetry in marriage patterns between women and men. The strongest association between spouses' education is in Slovakia, followed by Czech Republic, Norway, Germany, Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Estonia, and Slowenia, whereas the lowest association displays in Luxembourg, France, Sweden, Finland and Belgium. In addition to previous research we found inter-country variation in division into post-communist and Western democracies. In line with all earlier studies we found - upon examination of parameters estimated for educational levels - a uniform tendency according to which the difficulties of intermarriage varies monotonically with differences between educational level of spouses. The tendency toward in-marriage proved to be the strongest in the lowest educational levels - such pattern takes place in the 14 countries. Finally, our analysis substantiated presence of net tendency to 'marry up' higher educated husbands by women but we find that it is by no means an universal rule and in seven, out of 22 countries examined, it is men who 'marry up' higher educated wives.
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