@techreport{Grave2012dynamics,
abstract = {This paper examines the patterns of educational assortative mating in East and West Germany. In the literature it is well known that individuals do not mate randomly with respect to social and cultural traits, and that highly assortative mating can lead to polarization and exacerbate economic inequality. For Germany, little is known about actual patterns of marriage formation along educational lines. Our empirical analysis for Germany shows that educational assortative mating has increased significantly for East and West Germany during the last 15 and 30 years, respectively. To control for secular increases in educational attainment we apply different log-linear methods, leading to the conclusion that the observed changes in assortative mating in East and West Germany might be explained by changes in partner preferences. Especially within the group of low educated persons, the preferences for a homogamous partnership seems to have increased over time. --  -- In unserer empirischen Analyse untersuchen wir Trends in bildungsselektivem Heiratsverhalten (Homogamie) in Ost- und Westdeutschland. In der Literatur ist hinl\"{a}nglich bekannt, dass Individuen bezogen auf soziale und kulturelle Eigenschaften nicht zuf\"{a}llig heiraten und dass selektives Heiratsverhalten zu einer Polarisierung und zu einer Versch\"{a}rfung der Ungleichheit f\"{u}hren kann. F\"{u}r Deutschland existiert bisher wenig Evidenz f\"{u}r bildungsselektives Heiratsverhalten. Unter Verwendung der Daten des deutschen Mikrozensus zeigen wir, dass die Homogamie in Ost- und Westdeutschland in den letzten 15 bzw. 30 Jahren signifikant angestiegen ist. Log-lineare Modelle liefern Belege, dass die beobachteten Ver\"{a}nderungen in der Partnerwahl durch Ver\"{a}nderungen in den Pr\"{a}ferenzen hinsichtlich der Bildung des Partners erkl\"{a}rt werden k\"{o}nnen. Insbesondere unter Ehegatten mit niedrigem Bildungsstand stieg die Neigung, eine Person mit gleichem Bildungsstand zu heiraten.},
address = {Essen},
author = {Barbara S. Grave and Christoph M. Schmidt},
copyright = {http://www.econstor.eu/dspace/Nutzungsbedingungen},
doi = {10.4419/86788404},
isbn = {978-3-86788-404-4},
keywords = {I20; J12; 330; Assortative marriage; Microcensus; education; log-linear models},
language = {eng},
number = {346},
publisher = {RWI},
title = {The dynamics of assortative mating in Germany},
type = {Ruhr Economic Papers},
url = {http://hdl.handle.net/10419/61465},
year = {2012}
}
