Theunis Lindsay, Schnor Christine, Willaert Didier, Van Bavel Jan
1Centre for Sociological Research, University of Leuven, Parkstraat 45 bus 3601, 3000 Louvain, Belgium.
2Department of Sociology, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium.
Eur J Popul. 2017 Nov 21;34(4):663-687. doi: 10.1007/s10680-017-9448-y. eCollection 2018 Oct.
Educationally hypogamous marriages, where the wife is more educated than the husband, have been expected to be less stable than other educational pairings, in part because they do not conform to social norms. With the reversal of the gender gap in education, such marriages have become more common than in the past. Recent research suggests that this new context might be beneficial for the stability of hypogamous unions compared to other educational pairings. Here, we investigate how educational matches in married couples are associated with divorce risks taking into account the local prevalence of hypogamy. Using Belgian census and register data for 458,499 marriages contracted between 1986 and 2001, we show that hypogamy was not associated with higher divorce rates than homogamy in communities where hypogamy was common. Against expectations, marriages in which the husband was more educated than the wife tend to exhibit the highest divorce rates. More detailed analysis of the different types of educational matches revealed that marriages with at least one highly educated partner, male or female, were less divorce prone compared to otherwise similar couple types.
在教育方面“下嫁”的婚姻，即妻子比丈夫受教育程度更高的婚姻，被认为比其他教育配对的婚姻稳定性更低，部分原因是它们不符合社会规范。随着教育领域性别差距的逆转，这种婚姻比过去更为常见。最近的研究表明，与其他教育配对相比，这种新情况可能有利于“下嫁”婚姻的稳定性。在此，我们考虑到当地“下嫁”婚姻的普遍程度，研究已婚夫妇的教育匹配情况与离婚风险之间的关联。利用1986年至2001年间比利时458,499桩婚姻的人口普查和登记数据，我们发现，在“下嫁”婚姻普遍的社区，“下嫁”婚姻与同配婚姻相比，离婚率并不更高。与预期相反，丈夫比妻子受教育程度更高的婚姻往往离婚率最高。对不同类型教育匹配的更详细分析表明，与其他类似夫妻类型相比，夫妻双方至少有一方受过高等教育的婚姻更不容易离婚。
