Trends in educational homogamy in CentralEuropean Countries between 1976 and 2003
Tomáš Katrňák
Faculty of Social Studies
Masaryk University
Brno
katrnak@fss.muni.cz
Research theme
•Educational homogamy in Czech, Slovak and Hungarian societyand trends in this homogamy between 1976 and 2003
•Educational homogamy is the indicator of “societal openness”,more concretely it is the indicator of educational differences andtheir role among people (Smits, Ultee, Lammers, 1998a; 1998b)
–High educational homogamy means, that people perceiveeducational differences as high and these differences are reflected intheir marital option – in selection of husband or wife
–Lower educational homogamy indicates, that in perception ofpeople the educational differences are not significant, theeducational differences among people are not reflected in maritalselection
–For instance Smits, Ultee a Lammers says: “(a) society in which manymarriages take place between persons belonging to different social groups(…) can be considered a more open society than one in which few sociallymixed marriages occur” (ASR 1998a: 265)
The aim of the research
•To map educational homogamy in the Czech Republic, Slovakiaand Hungary
•To analyze trends in educational homogamy:
–In the period of socialism between 1976 and 1989 in all analyzedcountries
–During the transformation from socialism to capitalism in the firsthalf of nineties of 20th century
–In the beginning of the first decade of 21th century in all analyzedcountries
•To answer the question about the trends in educational inequalitiesindicated by educational homogamy in all analyzed countries
Results of social mobility research in formersocialistic countries
•Gerber and Hout (2005) analyzed intergenerational social mobilityin Russian society between 1988 and 2000 and showed that classstructure of Russian society is closing, because social fluidity isdecreasing and inequalities in labor market are growing.
•Pollak and Müller (2002) formulated the same result in theircomparison of intergenerational mobility in western and easternpart of Germany in nineties of 20th century. In both countries theclass structure was closing and social fluidity was going down inthis period.
Hypothesis concerning the trends educationalhomogamy in postsocialistic countries
•Gerber and Hout (2005) and Pollak and Müller (2002) showed, thatwe can expect the closing of class structure and the decrease ofrelative social mobility in former central European socialisticcountries in nineties of 20th century
•Other social scientists (Ultee, Luijkx, 1994) showed that there isnegative relationship between relative social mobility and relativeeducational homogamy
•Decrease of relative social mobility means the increase of educationalhomogamy and vice versa
•It means that we can expect, that relative educational homogamyis increasing in nineties of 20th century and educational diferencesare growing (when relative social mobility is decreasing)
•The question is what happened with educational homogamybetween 1976 and 1989 in all analyzed countries???
Data
•aggregated (tabulated) data
•All marriages sorted by man’s and woman’s education(elementary, vocational training, secondary, tertiary) in analyzedcountries (the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary) in years (1976,1979, 1982, 1985, 1988, 1991, 1994, 1997, 2000 and 2003 – periodwas 3 years)
•Structure of the data: 4 x 4 x 10 x 3 (M x W x Y x C)
•Source of data: National statistical offices
Type of analysis and standardization of thedata
•Log linear and log-multiplicative analysis, because we can seechanges in marginal distributions of men and women gettingmarried in analyzed period in each country
•Because of comparative reasons it was done in each two-way tablerandom sample M x W by their education
•The total N for each table was 25 000
•It means that I analyzed sample of 250 000 marriages in eachcountry (Y x 25 000)
•The total number of analyzed marriages in all countries was750 000 (C x Y x 10 000)
Results
Conclusions I
•Trends in absolute educational homogamy are very similar in allanalyzed countries.
•The lowest relative educational homogamy was in 1976 as well as in2003 in the Czech Republic, higher relative educational homogamywas in Hungary and the highest relative educational homogamy was inSlovakia
•From the time point of view we can conclude that the trend in allanalyzed countries is the same – this trend has the form of „U“
- from 1976 to the beginning of nineties relative educationalhomogamy is decreasing in all analyzed countries, during the firstpart of nineties the relative educational homogamy reaches itsminimum in all countries and from the half of nineties relativeeducational homogamy is in strong increase (the Czech Republic andSlovakia) or in slight increase (Hungary)
Conclusions II
•If we admit, that changes in relative educational homogamy indicate„educational openness“, it means that educational inequalities is goingto the same level, in which they were in the half of seventies of 20thcentury in all analyzed countries.
•Socialism (from 1976 to 1989) meant decreasing of educationalinequalities, because educational homogamy was in decrease, but thetransformation from socialism to capitalism in all analyzed countriesmeans the change of this trend: educational inequalities are in increasein all former socialistic countries at the moment because we can seethe increase of educational homogamy in marriage market in allformer socialistic countries