This paper reports trends in educational assortative marriage from 1940 to 2003 in the U.S. Analyses of Census and Current Population Survey data show that educational homogamy increased over most of this period, although there is some evidence of stabilization in the 1990s. From 1940 to the early-1970s, these increases were generated by decreasing intermarriage among groups of relatively well educated persons. Beginning in the early-1970s, the odds of intermarriage among the highly educated stabilized while the odds that high school dropouts marry up dropped substantially. These trends are similar for a broad cross-section of married couples and for newlyweds.

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Trends in Educational Assortative Marriage From 1940 to 2003 - eScholarship

For the past 20 years, social scientists have devoted increasing attention to the links between type of postsecondary education received and socioeconomic inequalities. Borrowing the terminology of Charles & Bradley (2002), we refer to the forms of these connections as horizontal dimensions of education-based stratification. We review studies of how institutional characteristics (college quality and type) and college experiences (field of specialization, academic performance, and pathway) are related to labor market outcomes. We also discuss research that treats college quality and field of specialization as dependent variables influenced by gender, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Throughout, we assess alternative theoretical explanations for why and how these horizontal aspects of college education play a stratifying role. We also note methodological developments that raise questions about some of the effects. Mirroring the literature, we emphasize how horizontal dimensions of stratification a...

Horizontal Stratification in Postsecondary Education: Forms, Explanations, and Implications

Growing Up with a Single Parent: What Hurts, What Helps.Sara McLanahan , Gary Sandefur

Models of network formation emphasize the importance of social similarity and propinquity in producing strong interpersonal connections. The positive effect each factor can have on tie strength has been documented across a number of studies, and yet we know surprisingly very little about how the two factors combine to produce strong ties. Being in close proximity could either amplify or dampen the positive effect that social similarity can have on tie strength. Data on tie strength among teachers working in five public schools were analyzed to shed light on this theoretical question. The empirical results indicate that teachers who were similar in age were more likely to be connected by a strong tie, especially teachers for whom age similarity was more likely to be salient. Moreover, teachers who took breaks at the same time or who had classrooms on the same floor communicated more frequently and felt more emotionally attached. Among the public school teachers, propinquity amplified the positive effect that age similarity had on tie strength. The strongest network connections occurred among age-similar teachers who had classrooms on the same floor. The empirical results illustrate the value of considering how social similarity and propinquity contribute to strong ties independently and when combined with each other.

Close Encounters: Analyzing How Social Similarity and Propinquity Contribute to Strong Network Connections

This is an accepted and copyedited manuscript that was published online before print on March 17, 2016, in Administrative Science Quarterly.

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Whitened Résumés Race and Self-Presentation in the Labor Market

Past research has reported that Asian‐Americans, and Asian immigrants in particular, have lower earnings than do whites within the same levels of education. However, few studies have explored why this earnings disadvantage exists. This article investigates whether and to what extent this disadvantage can be attributed to the lower value of foreign education in the U.S. job market. By comparing earnings of four groups of workers—U.S.‐born whites, U.S.‐born Asian‐Americans, U.S.‐educated Asian immigrants, and Asian immigrants who completed education prior to immigration, we examine earnings gaps between whites and Asian‐Americans that are attributable to race, nativity, and place of education. Our results show that (1) there is no earnings difference across U.S.‐born whites, U.S.‐born Asian‐Americans, and U.S.‐educated Asian immigrants, and that (2) foreign‐educated Asian immigrants earn approximately 16% less than the other three groups of workers. We conclude that place of education plays a crucial role i...

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Asian-Americans' earnings disadvantage reexamined: The role of place of education

The issue of whether the social class of grandparents affects grandchildren's socioeconomic outcomes net of the characteristics of the middle generation is much debated in the social mobility literature. Using data from the 2002 Chinese Household Income Project, we investigate the direct effects of grandparents on grandchildren's educational attainment in rural China. We find that the influence of grandparents is contingent on living arrangements. Although the educational level of coresident grandparents directly affects the educational attainment of their grandchildren, with an effect size similar to that of parental education, the education of noncoresident and deceased grandparents does not have any effect. These findings suggest that grandparents can directly affect grandchildren's educational outcomes through sociopsychological pathways. Our study not only adds an important case study to the literature but also sheds new light on theoretical interpretations of grandparent effects when they are found.

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The effects of grandparents on children's schooling: evidence from rural China.

A long‐standing objective of friendship research is to identify the effects of personal preference and structural opportunity on intergroup friendship choice. Although past studies have used various methods to separate preference from opportunity, researchers have not yet systematically compared the properties and implications of these methods. This study puts forward a general framework for discrete choice, where choice probability is specified as proportional to the product of preference and opportunity. To implement this framework, the authors propose a modification to the conditional logit model for estimating preference parameters free from the influence of opportunity structure and then compare this approach to several alternative methods for separating preference and opportunity used in the friendship choice literature. As an empirical example, the authors test hypotheses of homophily and status asymmetry in friendship choice using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. The...

/pdf/a-preference-opportunity-choice-framework-with-applications-2r4lr89oxm.pdf

A preference-opportunity-choice framework with applications to intergroup friendship.

Intermarriage plays a key role in stratification systems. Spousal resemblance reinforces social boundaries within and across generations, and the rules of intermarriage govern the ways that social mobility may occur. We examine intermarriage across social origin and education boundaries in the United States using data from the 1968-2013 Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Our evidence points to a pattern of status exchange-that is, persons with high education from modest backgrounds tend to marry those with lower education from more privileged backgrounds. Our study contributes to an active methodological debate by pinpointing the conditions under which the results pivot from evidence against exchange to evidence for exchange and advances theory by showing that the rules of exchange are more consistent with the notion of diminishing marginal utility than the more general theory of compensating differentials.

https://sociologicalscience.com/download/vol-3/november/SocSci_v3_1003to1027.pdf

Zhen Zeng

Papers

Asian-Americans' earnings disadvantage reexamined: The role of place of education

The effects of grandparents on children's schooling: evidence from rural China.

A preference-opportunity-choice framework with applications to intergroup friendship.

Marrying Up by Marrying Down: Status Exchange between Social Origin and Education in the United States.

Asian-Americans' Earnings Disadvantage Reexamined: The Role of Place of