Impact of Educational and Religious Homogamy on Marital Stability

39 Pages Posted: 26 Oct 2009

See all articles by Kornelius Kraft

Kornelius Kraft

University of Dortmund - Department of Economics; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Stefanie Neimann

Technical University of Dortmund

Abstract

Using a rich panel data set from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we test whether spouses who are similar to each other in certain respects have a lower probability of divorce than dissimilar spouses. We focus on the effect of homogamy with respect to education and church attendance. Gary Becker's theory of marriage predicts that usually, positive assortative mating is optimal. Our results, however, suggest that homogamy per se does not increase marital stability but higher education and religiousness.

Keywords: divorce, homogamy, education

JEL Classification: I20, J12

Suggested Citation

Kraft, Kornelius and Neimann, Stefanie, Impact of Educational and Religious Homogamy on Marital Stability. IZA Discussion Paper No. 4491, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1493867 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1493867

Kornelius Kraft (Contact Author)

University of Dortmund - Department of Economics ( email )

D-44221 Dortmund
Germany
+49 231 755-3152 (Phone)
+49 231 755-3155 (Fax)

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Stefanie Neimann

Technical University of Dortmund ( email )

Emil-Figge-Straße 50
Dortmund, 44227
Germany

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
149
Abstract Views
1,265
Rank
354,898
PlumX Metrics