China Seminars are organised by China Research Group, NUBS and supported by NCI
Title: Educational Assortative Mating and Marital Satisfaction: A Study Based on Chinese Family Panel Studies
Speaker: Prof Yaojun Li, The University of Manchester
Abstract: Using data from Chinese Family Panel Studies (CFPS 2018), this paper analyses the impact of educational assortative mating on marital satisfaction of conjugal partners by using diagonal reference models. The results suggest that the higher the level of educational homogamy, the higher the marital satisfaction for both spouses; that hypogamous marriage can significantly reduce the marital satisfaction of both spouses while hypergamous marriage has a positive effect on wife’s marital satisfaction; and that there are clear gender differences of educational impacts on marital satisfaction – for wives, the larger the differences between their own and the husband’s educational levels, the stronger the negative effect on their marital satisfaction whereas short-range hypergamy increases their marital satisfaction; for husbands, only long-range hypogamous marriage has a negative impact on their own marital satisfaction. With the gender-gap reversal in education, hypogamy will increase, and the stability of marriage and marital satisfaction may face more challenges in the future.
Bio: Yaojun Li is a Professor of Sociology at the Department of Sociology, the University of Manchester, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA). He obtained his MPhil and DPhil in Sociology at the University of Oxford. His research focuses on social mobility and social stratification, with particular regard to class, education, labour market position, social capital and ethnic integration in Britain and China. He has published over 100 journal papers in English and has conducted around 20 research projects as PI or Co-PI funded by academic and government agencies in Britain, China, USA, Australia and Qatar. His work has appeared in leading sociology journals such as the American Journal of Sociology, British Journal of Sociology, European Sociological Review, Research in Social Mobility and Stratification, and Sociology. He has also written many official reports for government organisations and think-tanks. He has edited several books on Social Capital (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015) and Social Inequality in China (with Yanjie Bian, World Science Publishing, 2019), and is writing a book on Social Mobility with Anthony Heath (Polity Press).