The Educational Homogamy Gap Between Married and Cohabiting Couples in Latin America

The explosive expansion of non-marital cohabitation in Latin America since the 1970s has led to the narrowing of the gap in educational homogamy between married and cohabiting couples (what we call "homogamy gap") as shown by our analysis of 29 census samples encompassing eight countries:...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Population research and policy review 2013-02, Vol.32 (1), p.81-102
Main Authors: Esteve, Albert, McCaa, Robert, López, Luis Ángel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Argentina
Assortative mating
Brazil
Canada
Census
Censuses
Chile
Cohabitation
Colombia
Costa Rica
Countries
Couples
Demography
Developed countries
Developing Countries
Ecuador
Education policy
Educational attainment
Europe
Explosives
Historical account
Homogamy
Industrial Societies
Institutionalization
Latin America
LDCs
Level of education
Marriage
Mate selection
Mexico
Panama
Parametric models
Poor
Population Economics
Reviews
Single status
Social Sciences
Sociology
Studies
U.S.A
United States
Womens studies
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Summary:The explosive expansion of non-marital cohabitation in Latin America since the 1970s has led to the narrowing of the gap in educational homogamy between married and cohabiting couples (what we call "homogamy gap") as shown by our analysis of 29 census samples encompassing eight countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, and Panama (N = 2,295,160 young couples). Most research on the homogamy gap is limited to a single decade and a small group of developed countries (the United States, Canada, and Europe). We take a historical and cross-national perspective and expand the research to a range of developing countries, where since early colonial times, traditional forms of cohabitation among the poor, uneducated sectors of society have coexisted with marriage, although to widely varying degrees from country to country. In recent decades, cohabitation is emerging in all sectors of society. We find that among married couples, educational homogamy continues to be higher than for those who cohabit, but in recent decades, the difference has narrowed substantially in all countries. We argue that assortative mating between cohabiting and married couples tends to be similar when the contexts in which they are formed are also increasingly similar.
ISSN:0167-5923
1573-7829
DOI:10.1007/s11113-012-9263-4