IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2305.00231.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Historical trend in educational homophily: U-shaped or not U-shaped? Or, how to set a criterion to choose a criterion?

Author

Listed:
  • Anna Naszodi

Abstract

Measuring changes in overall inequality between different educational groups is often performed by quantifying variations in educational marital homophily across consecutive generations. However, this task becomes challenging when the education level of marriageable individuals is generation-specific. To address this challenge, various indicators have been proposed in the assortative mating literature. In this paper, we review a set of criteria that indicators must satisfy to be considered as suitable measures of homophily and inequality. Our analytical criteria include robustness to the number of educational categories distinguished and the negative association between intergenerational mobility and homophily. Additionally, we also impose an empirical criterion on the identified qualitative historical trend in homophily between 1960 and 2010 in the US at the national and sub-national levels. Our analysis reveals that while a specific cardinal indicator meets all three criteria, many commonly applied indices do not. We propose the application of this well-performing indicator to quantify the trend in overall inequality in any country, including European countries, with available population data on couples' education level.

Suggested Citation

  • Anna Naszodi, 2023. "Historical trend in educational homophily: U-shaped or not U-shaped? Or, how to set a criterion to choose a criterion?," Papers 2305.00231, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2024.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2305.00231
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2305.00231
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brant Abbott & Giovanni Gallipoli & Costas Meghir & Giovanni L. Violante, 2019. "Education Policy and Intergenerational Transfers in Equilibrium," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(6), pages 2569-2624.
    2. Anna Naszodi, 2023. "Direct comparison or indirect comparison via a series of counterfactual decompositions?," Papers 2303.04905, arXiv.org.
    3. Michael Kremer, 1997. "How Much does Sorting Increase Inequality?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 115-139.
    4. Jesse Bricker & Alice Henriques & Jacob Krimmel & John Sabelhaus, 2016. "Estimating Top Income and Wealth Shares: Sensitivity to Data and Methods," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 641-645, May.
    5. Gary S. Becker, 1981. "A Treatise on the Family," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number beck81-1, May.
    6. Raquel Fernández & Richard Rogerson, 2001. "Sorting and Long-Run Inequality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(4), pages 1305-1341.
    7. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2003. "Income Inequality in the United States, 1913–1998," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 1-41.
    8. Vincent J Geloso & Phillip Magness & John Moore & Philip Schlosser, 2022. "How Pronounced is the U-Curve? Revisiting Income Inequality in the United States, 1917–60," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(647), pages 2366-2391.
    9. Eugene Choo & Aloysius Siow, 2006. "Who Marries Whom and Why," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(1), pages 175-201, February.
    10. Liu, Haoming & Lu, Jingfeng, 2006. "Measuring the degree of assortative mating," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 92(3), pages 317-322, September.
    11. Emmanuel Saez & Gabriel Zucman, 2016. "Editor's Choice Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913: Evidence from Capitalized Income Tax Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(2), pages 519-578.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Anna Naszodi, 2023. "What do surveys say about the historical trend of inequality and the applicability of two table-transformation methods?," Papers 2303.05895, arXiv.org.
    2. Pierre-André Chiappori & Monica Costa Dias & Costas Meghir, 2020. "Changes in Assortative Matching: Theory and Evidence for the US," Working Papers 2020-033, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    3. Anna NAZSZODI & Francisco MENDONCA, 2023. "A new method for identifying the role of marital preferences at shaping marriage patterns," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 89(1), pages 1-27, March.
    4. Anderson, Gordon & Leo, Teng Wah, 2013. "An empirical examination of matching theories: The one child policy, partner choice and matching intensity in urban China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 468-489.
    5. Wu, Mingqin & Chen, Bin, 2016. "Assignment of provincial officials based on economic performance: Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 60-75.
    6. Edoardo Ciscato & Simon Weber, 2020. "The role of evolving marital preferences in growing income inequality," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(1), pages 307-347, January.
    7. Pierre-Andre Chiappori & Monica Costa Dias & Costas Meghir, 2021. "The Measuring of Assortativeness in Marriage," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2316, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    8. Ran Abramitzky & Adeline Delavande & Luis Vasconcelos, 2011. "Marrying Up: The Role of Sex Ratio in Assortative Matching," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 124-157, July.
    9. Nie, Haifeng & Xing, Chunbing, 2019. "Education expansion, assortative marriage, and income inequality in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 37-51.
    10. Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde & Jeremy Greenwood & Nezih Guner, 2011. "From Shame to Game in One Hundred Years: A Macroeconomic Model of the Rise in Premarital Sex and its De-Stigmatization," RCER Working Papers 569, University of Rochester - Center for Economic Research (RCER).
    11. Pierre‐André Chiappori & Monica Costa‐Dias & Sam Crossman & Costas Meghir, 2020. "Changes in Assortative Matching and Inequality in Income: Evidence for the UK," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(1), pages 39-63, March.
    12. Jesús Fernández-Villaverde & Jeremy Greenwood & Nezih Guner, 2014. "From Shame To Game In One Hundred Years: An Economic Model Of The Rise In Premarital Sex And Its De-Stigmatization," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 25-61, February.
    13. Jesse Bricker & Alice Henriques & Jacob Krimmel & John Sabelhaus, 2016. "Measuring Income and Wealth at the Top Using Administrative and Survey Data," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 47(1 (Spring), pages 261-331.
    14. Benjamin Ching & Tayla Forward & Oscar Parkyn, 2023. "Estimating the Distribution of Wealth in New Zealand," Treasury Working Paper Series 23/01, New Zealand Treasury.
    15. Valerio Filoso, 2010. "Bright and Wealthy: Exploring Assortative Mating," Chapters, in: Neri Salvadori (ed.), Institutional and Social Dynamics of Growth and Distribution, chapter 10, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Lasse Eika & Magne Mogstad & Basit Zafar, 2019. "Educational Assortative Mating and Household Income Inequality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(6), pages 2795-2835.
    17. Soohyung Lee, 2008. "Preferences and Choice Constraints in Marital Sorting: Evidence From Korea," Discussion Papers 07-042, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    18. Joseph Altonji & Disa Hynsjo & Ivan Vidangos, 2023. "Individual Earnings and Family Income: Dynamics and Distribution," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 49, pages 225-250, July.
    19. Ivan Vidangos & Joseph Altonji, 2014. "Marriage Dynamics, Earnings Dynamics, and Lifetime Family Income," 2014 Meeting Papers 1230, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    20. Greenwood, Jeremy & Guner, Nezih & Fernández-Villaverde, Jesús, 2011. "From Shame to Game in One Hundred Years: The Rise in Premarital Sex and its Destigmitization," CEPR Discussion Papers 8667, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2305.00231. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.