Do private school girls marry rich?

Publication type

Journal Article

Authors

Publication date

June 1, 2018

Summary:

This paper considers for the first time whether there is school-type homogamy, and whether for women there are significant advantages from private schooling as a consequence of school-type homogamy. Its focus is Britain, where a private education is associated with substantial labour market advantages and where access is socially exclusive. We find that privately educated women are 7 percentage points more likely than observably similar state-educated women to marry privately educated men. Privately educated married women have husbands who earn 15% higher pay, according to the BHPS-UKHLS panel (20% at age 42, according to the British Cohort Study). Causation is not established and considerable caution would be needed if interpreting these associations as reflecting causal effects from private schools. The findings nevertheless raise anew the issue of the negative association between Britain’s private schooling and social mobility.

Published in

Longitudinal and Life Course Studies

Volume and page numbers

Volume: 9 , p.327 -350

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/10.14301/llcs.v9i3.496

ISSN

17579597

Subjects

Notes

Online free of charge one year from publication

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