Does individual educational attainment affect educational homogamy?—Evidence from CGSS

Abstract

Family is the basic unit that constitutes social relations, and marriage-matching determines the development trajectory of a household. Education has become one of the most important ingredients of marriage in modern society, and the proportion of homogamy is increasing day by day. This article employs the data from the Chinese General Social Survey to research the mechanism of educational attainment on the educational homogamy. To eliminate the effect of endogeneity, we use the Probit model and instrumental variables for testing. The empirical results indicate that social members with higher educational backgrounds are more likely to choose educational homogamy. After controlling for other variables, social members and female members with lower ages are more likely to choose spouses with similar educational backgrounds.