The purpose of this study is to examine the trends in educational homogamy for the last 30 years' Korean society, to discover variations of educational homogamy among sub-population groups and to find out a major factor which has affected the change o...
The purpose of this study is to examine the trends in educational homogamy for the last 30 years' Korean society, to discover variations of educational homogamy among sub-population groups and to find out a major factor which has affected the change of educational homogamy.
Traditionally in Korea, Men were more educated than women. So men could not have enough women eligible for marriage who were as educated as their spouses. This made it possible for men to marry women of lower educational level.
This phenomenon, especially, originated from the 'existence of minorities'. Recently, however, the women's educational improvement is expected to influence the trends in educational homogamy to some degree.
For this study, I examined the year of first marriage, the educational distributions between husbands and wives, husband's occupation and the premarital residence, based on the data from 「The 1988 National Survey of Fertility and Family Health, KIPH」.
The major findings of this study are as follows :
Firstly, general tendency in educational homogamy has increased for the past 30 years. Especially 60-64 marriage cohort shows high educational homogamy in the low educational level (elimentary school) but 85-88 marriage cohort differs from prior marriage cohort that is high educational homogamy in the higher educational level (high school). And similarly, this tendency shows occupational category and premarital residence's category.
Secondly, the increase of educational homogamy is relevant to the change of educational attainment between husbands and wives. That is, In 70-74 marriage cohort, population distribution of husbands and wives in education level is the most heterogeneous, so rate of educational homogamy indicated minimum. After that period, becoming homogamous in educational distribution, educational homogamy indicated increasing.
These results indicate demographic factors to influence on trends in educational homogamy. That is, as increasing homogamous at the same educational category between husbands and wives, the educational homogamy is increased. Herewith it indicates educational level has been a major factor to mate selection in Korea for the past 30 years.