Recent socio-economic trends in the United States, including increasing economic inequality, women’s increasing access to education, and the rise of online dating, have ambiguous effects on the dating patterns of academic single women. In this research note, we examine changes in educational attainment in the United States over the past eight decades (1940 to 2020) using the annual US Census and the American Community Survey, extending and extending previous work by Schwartz and Mare. . We find that the rise in educational homogamy noted by Schwartz and Mare did not continue. The increase in homogamy in education stopped around 1990 and began to reverse in the 2000s. We find a growing tendency for marriages to cross educational barriers, but a college degree remains a strong dividing line for marriage. The main trend that explains this new pattern is the increasing tendency of women to marry men who are less educated than themselves. If not for this practice, homosexuality would continue to grow until the early 2010s. We also show significant differences by race, ethnicity, and nativity as well as between heterosexual same-sex couples.
That’s according to a new paper by Noah Hirschl, Christine R. Schwartz, and Elia Boschetti, with lead author Kevin Lewis.
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