Local Mating Markets and Partnership Formation: The Role of Education-Specific Mating Squeezes

Nadia Steiber, University of Vienna
Erich Striessnig, University of Vienna
Laura Zilian , University of Vienna

The reversed gender gap in education has created structural constraints in local mating markets. The surplus of highly educated women relative to highly educated men limits their options for educationally homogamous partnerships. Previous research suggests that such education-specific mating squeezes contribute to shifting patterns of union formation, including rising proportions of hypogamous couples — where the woman has a higher level of education than the man. This study examines the impact of such constraints in local mating markets on partnership formation, i.e., the likelihood and timing of union formation and educational sorting. We extend previous research by using Austrian register data including all individuals born in 1991, who were single in 2011. Following them over ten years (about 85,000 persons) allows us to examine partnership formation from a life course perspective during a critical life phase for partnership formation. Consistent with previous findings, our results show that local education-specific mating squeezes increase the probability of hypogamous unions and that this effect increases with age. Our study extends these findings by incorporating interactions between age, market squeeze and market density and by testing differences in results across different definitions of local mating markets and squeeze indicators.

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 Presented in Session P7. Education, Labor Market, and Economic Issues