Intergenerational Social Mobility And Assortative Mating In Britain

Author : Michael D. King
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 147 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (119 download)

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Download or read book Intergenerational Social Mobility and Family Formation in the United States written by Michael D. King and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 147 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this dissertation, I shift the focus of mainstream social stratification research away from economic and occupational outcomes to incorporate family formation patterns, both as an outcome related to social mobility and as a contributor to social mobility. Across three related papers, I investigate the relationships between social mobility and family formation by focusing on the marriage experiences of first-generation college students and the transmission of status and family structure between mothers and daughters. In the first paper (Chapter 2), I examine the marriage timing and assortative mating patterns of first- and continuing-generation college graduates to test the idea that college is a great equalizer for marriage outcomes. I find few differences in marriage timing, but large differences in who marries whom, particularly for women. Compared to women who have college educated parents, women who are the first in their family to earn a bachelor's degree have a substantially lower likelihood of marrying a college graduate. Similar differences do not exist for men. These findings highlight the importance of examining non-economic outcomes when studying social mobility and offer insight into how inequality may persist across generations, especially for women, despite apparent upward mobility. In the second paper (Chapter 3), I test one possible explanation for the large differences in assortative mating patterns observed in Chapter 2. Namely, I explore whether accounting for where people attend college (including a college's distance from home, gender and socioeconomic composition, and selectivity) helps explain first-generation women's lower likelihood of marrying a college graduate. I find that each of the examined college characteristics is related to assortative mating outcomes but differences in attendance patterns between first- and continuing-generation women explain only a small amount of the differences observed in Chapter 2. These findings rule out one possible explanation for the observed differences and broaden our understanding of the role that colleges play in who marries whom. I propose a number of additional avenues that future work should explore to better understand the remaining homogamy differences between first- and continuing-generation women. In the final paper (Chapter 4), I examine the relationships between the transmission of economic status and family structure between parents and children. Specifically, I examine how these interrelationships differ for those in poverty compared to those in affluence and explore whether rapid social change in the economic and demographic contexts of the United States has transformed the relationships over time. I find that the intergenerational transmission of economic status and family structure are more intertwined than previous work has suggested, though these relationships have been relatively stable over time. Specifically, I find evidence of both a double disadvantage experienced by those who grow up in poverty with a single mother and a double advantage for those who grow up in affluence with both biological parents. These findings speak to the consequences of childhood conditions for adult outcomes and highlight another way that family processes play an important role in social stratification dynamics in the United States.