Abstract
A popular song in Sweden is entitled „Love is not blind, but fairly shortsighted“, That is half way to a concession to a regular finding in studies of marriage patterns, namely that factors of little romantic flavor are important for partner selection. People on the whole tend not to „marry out“ of their social group, whether it be ethnic, religious, socioeconomic, or based on educational qualifications (for a review, see Kalmijn 1998). One explanation for such homogamy is that individuals, far from being blind for love, have clear preferences about their future marriage partner’s social and cultural characteristics. Such preferences may be about similarities, e.g., sharing cultural, life-style, or political interests (which all are signaled by educational qualifications). But also if everybody in the marriage market follows a queue principle in their preference order — such as preferring a well-educated spouse with high earnings potential — the combination of preferences and resources will lead to educational assortative mating (cf. Mare 1991).
We are grateful for comments on a previous draft at the RC28 meeting in Libourne, France and from colleagues at the Swedish Institute for Social Research. Jonsson acknowledges economic support from The Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research (FAS) (Grant No. F0923/1999) and Henz thanks the Swedish Research Council for the Social Sciences for its support.
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Henz, U., Jonsson, J.O. (2003). Who Marries whom in Sweden?. In: Blossfeld, HP., Timm, A. (eds) Who Marries Whom?. European Studies of Population, vol 12. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1065-8_11
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