Educational Assortative Mating and Individual and Family Economic Well-being in China

Couples often sort on certain characteristics, such as age and education. The patterns of assortative mating — who marries whom — have important implications for inequalities within and across families and societies at large. Educational assortative mating refers to the pairing patterns of spouses’ education. In patriarchal societies, educational homogamy (spouses having the same level of education) and educational hypergamy (husbands more educated than wives) are more common than educational hypogamy (wives more educated than husbands). Recent works by Cheng Cheng (Singapore Management University) and Yang Zhou (Central University of Finance and Economics) explore how educational assortative mating patterns shape individual and family economic well-being in contemporary China.

Drawing on longitudinal survey data from the China Family Panel Studies, Cheng and Zhou (2024) show how the magnitude of the “motherhood penalty” — mothers earning less than comparable childless women — varies by couples’ educational pairings in China. One key finding is that a large educational difference between spouses — hypergamy or hypogamy — exacerbates the motherhood penalty. When the educational difference between spouses is at least two levels apart, women in hypergamy may experience a more gendered division of labor, while women in hypogamy may face limited spousal resources or perform more traditional gender roles to compensate for gender deviance.

In another study, Cheng and Zhou (2022) show how household wealth accumulation varies by different types of educational hypogamy. While prior research often focuses on assortative mating based on couples’ own education (achieved status), their study further examines assortative mating based on couples’ parental education (ascribed status). One key finding is that couples in which the wife has both higher own education and higher parental education tend to experience faster gains in household wealth over years of marriage. Wives’ elevated status through either their own or their parental education may facilitate wealth accumulation at the household level. This finding also highlights the role of the extended family in household wealth accumulation through marital sorting on family background.

Together, these findings suggest that educational assortative patterns have important implications for both individual and family economic well-being.

Further reading:

Cheng, C., & Zhou, Y. (2024). Educational assortative mating and motherhood penalty in China. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 89, 100873. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rssm.2023.100873

Cheng, C., & Zhou, Y. (2022). Wealth accumulation by hypogamy in own and parental education in China. Journal of Marriage and Family, 84, 570-591. https://doi.org/ 10.1111/jomf.12805