Department of Sociology and the Population Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, 305 E. 23rd Street, Stop G1800, Austin, TX, 78712, USA,
Demography. 2014 Aug;51(4):1319-44. doi: 10.1007/s13524-014-0313-x.
Explanations for the positive association between education and marriage in the United States emphasize the economic and cultural attractiveness of having a college degree in the marriage market. However, educational attainment may also shape the opportunities that men and women have to meet other college-educated partners, particularly in contexts with significant educational stratification. We focus on work-and the social ties that it supports-and consider whether the educational composition of occupations is important for marriage formation during young adulthood. Employing discrete-time event-history methods using the NLSY-97, we find that occupational education is positively associated with transitioning to first marriage and with marrying a college-educated partner for women but not for men. Moreover, occupational education is positively associated with marriage over cohabitation as a first union for women. Our findings call attention to an unexplored, indirect link between education and marriage that, we argue, offers insight into why college-educated women in the United States enjoy better marriage prospects.
在美国，教育与婚姻呈正相关的原因可以用经济和文化方面的因素来解释，即拥有大学学历可以提高在婚姻市场上的吸引力。然而，教育程度也可能影响到男性和女性结识其他受过高等教育伴侣的机会，尤其是在教育分层明显的背景下。我们关注的是工作以及工作所带来的社会关系，并考虑在年轻人中，职业的教育构成对于婚姻形成是否重要。我们使用NLSY-97 的离散时间事件历史方法，发现女性的职业教育与首次婚姻的转变以及与受过大学教育的伴侣结婚呈正相关，但对男性则没有影响。此外，对于女性来说，职业教育与首次结合时选择结婚而非同居呈正相关。我们的研究结果表明，教育和婚姻之间存在一种尚未被充分探索的间接联系，我们认为，这为解释为什么受过大学教育的美国女性享有更好的婚姻前景提供了新的视角。
