title: Opportunities to meet: occupational education and marriage formation in young adulthood.
abstract: Explanations for the positive association between education and marriage in the United States emphasize the economic and cultural attractiveness of having a college degree in the marriage market. However, educational attainment may also shape the opportunities that men and women have to meet other college-educated partners, particularly in contexts with significant educational stratification. We focus on work-and the social ties that it supports-and consider whether the educational composition of occupations is important for marriage formation during young adulthood. Employing discrete-time event-history methods using the NLSY-97, we find that occupational education is positively associated with transitioning to first marriage and with marrying a college-educated partner for women but not for men. Moreover, occupational education is positively associated with marriage over cohabitation as a first union for women. Our findings call attention to an unexplored, indirect link between education and marriage that, we argue, offers insight into why college-educated women in the United States enjoy better marriage prospects.
authors: Department of Sociology and the Population Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, 305 E. 23rd Street, Stop G1800, Austin, TX, 78712, USA, mcclendon@utexas.edu.
authors: David
authors: D
authors: McClendon
authors: Janet Chen-Lan
authors: JC
authors: Kuo
authors: R Kelly
authors: RK
authors: Raley
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008393:Marriage / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D009790:Occupations / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012931:Social Environment; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014481:United States