Educational Institutions as Mating Markets

Juho Härkönen, Stockholm University
Margarita Chudnovskaya, Stockholm University

Educational institutions are important settings in which future partners meet. Yet there is little research on educational institutions as mating markets. In this study, we follow the educational histories of an entire birth cohort of Swedes, born in 1970. We are able to identify the educational institutions the members of this cohort attended, and assess whether their partners overlapped in these institutions. We focus on high schools (Gymnasium) and universities. We analyse the probability of overlapping ("meeting") in these educational institutions and compare them to rates from other mating markets. We also analyse how the structural and compositional characteristics affect the likelihood of partnering with someone from these schools. Our findings show important compositional effects on these patterns and carry implications for our understanding of educational institutions as settings for assortative mating.