Marriage Markets and Women's Schooling in Latin America

Daniela Urbina , Princeton University

A female advantage in educational attainment has emerged in most Latin American countries, but we know very little about the marriage market consequences of this demographic change. In this paper, I investigate the implications of educational expansion and women’s schooling for Latin American marriage markets. Using the International Social Survey, Census data, and administrative records from 7 countries, I aim to fill this gap by answering two research questions: How educational pairings---hypergamy, hypogamy, and homogamy---at different levels of attainment vary across contexts? And second, what are the contextual determinants associated to larger proportions of hypogamous couples across Latin American countries? Preliminary analyses using log-linear models indicate that, indeed, there are heterogeneous patterns of educational assortative mating across countries, net of the marginal changes in educational expansion. Divergence is especially high for the case of asymmetrical pairings at lower educational transitions.

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 Presented in Session 8. Economy, Labor Force, Education, & Inequality