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Author: King, Michael D.
Resulting in 4 citations.
1. King, Michael D.
College as a Great Equalizer? Marriage and Assortative Mating Among First- and Continuing-Generation College Students
Demography published online (27 September 2021): DOI: 10.1215/00703370-9461389.
Also: https://read.dukeupress.edu/demography/article/doi/10.1215/00703370-9461389/210232/College-as-a-Great-Equalizer-Marriage-and
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Age at First Marriage; Assortative Mating; College Education; Mobility, Social; Parental Influences; Socioeconomic Background

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

College has been hailed as a "great equalizer" that can substantially reduce the influence of parents' socioeconomic status on their children's subsequent life chances. Do the equalizing effects of college extend beyond the well-studied economic outcomes to other dimensions, in particular, marriage? When and whom one marries have important implications for economic and family stability, with marriage acting as a social safety net, encouraging joint long-term investments, and potentially producing dual-earner families. I focus on the marriage timing and assortative mating patterns of first- and continuing-generation college graduates to test whether college acts as an equalizer for marriage against alternative hypotheses. Using discrete-time event-history methods and data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, I find small differences between first- and continuing-generation graduates in marriage timing, but larger differences in assortative mating, particularly for women. First-generation women have a substantially lower likelihood of marrying another college graduate than do continuing-generation women, and a higher likelihood of marrying a noncollege graduate. These findings highlight the importance of examining noneconomic outcomes when studying social mobility and offer insight into how inequality may persist across generations, especially for women, despite apparent upward mobility.
Bibliography Citation
King, Michael D. "College as a Great Equalizer? Marriage and Assortative Mating Among First- and Continuing-Generation College Students." Demography published online (27 September 2021): DOI: 10.1215/00703370-9461389.
2. King, Michael D.
College Characteristics and Assortative Mating Patterns among First-Generation College Students
Presented: New York NY, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2019
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: American Sociological Association
Keyword(s): Assortative Mating; College Characteristics; College Graduates; Marriage; Socioeconomic Background

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

A college education has well documented relationships with marriage patterns, including whom someone marries. These partnering patterns have important implications for individuals as well as society. High levels of educational homogamy concentrates (dis)advantage in couples, increasingly levels of inequality. While the implications of high levels of educational homogamy are clear, the components influencing who marries whom are less well understood. Among college graduates, the characteristics of the college attended are likely to play a role in structuring potential marriage markets, both during school and after graduation. The way colleges structure marriage markets, though, may also depend on the characteristics of any given student. In this paper, I examine whether and how college characteristics such as student body composition, selectivity, and distance from home are related to the likelihood of educational homogamy among college graduates. Additionally, I test whether these relationships differ between first- and continuing-generation college graduates. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 and the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, I find that the opposite-gender composition of a school is negatively related to the likelihood of marrying someone else with a college degree and that this negative relationship is stronger for first-generation students. I also find evidence that graduates of schools with higher acceptance rates and higher proportions of students receiving federal grant aid are more likely to marry someone with less than a bachelor's degree. While college characteristics do influence the likelihood of educational homogamy, they do little to explain observed differences between first- and continuing generation men and women's patterns of assortative mating. By examining social origin, college characteristics, and marriage outcomes together, this paper helps develop a more comprehensive understanding of their i nterrelationships and begins to move us closer to understanding both persistent social inequalities and potential pathways to social mobility.
Bibliography Citation
King, Michael D. "College Characteristics and Assortative Mating Patterns among First-Generation College Students." Presented: New York NY, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2019.
3. King, Michael D.
First-Generation College Students and the Timing of Marriage
Presented: Philadelphia PA, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2018
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: American Sociological Association
Keyword(s): Age at First Marriage; College Education; Educational Attainment; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Parental Influences

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

There has been a considerable amount of research documenting the relationship between educational attainment and union formation as well as the relationship between parental education and children's union formation. In almost all cases, though, these two lines of work are carried out in isolation from each other. This paper fills this void in prior literature by examining the interaction between child and parent education and its influence on the timing of first marriage, paying particular attention to first-generation college students. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, I explore if and how marital timing of college graduates varies by parental education. I find that first-generation college attendees marry earlier than other college attendees. However, among those who have not married by the time they complete a bachelor's degree, there are relatively few differences between first- and continuing-generation college students in their marriage timing. These results offer important insight into the complex relationships between social mobility and demographic processes and provide new evidence about the equalizing effects of higher education, research on which has traditionally focused only on economic outcomes.
Bibliography Citation
King, Michael D. "First-Generation College Students and the Timing of Marriage." Presented: Philadelphia PA, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2018.
4. King, Michael D.
Intergenerational Social Mobility and Family Formation in the United States
Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Sociology, The University of Wisconsin - Madison, 2020
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT)
Keyword(s): Family Formation; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Marital Status; Marriage; Mobility, Social; Mothers and Daughters; Socioeconomic Status (SES)

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

In this dissertation, I shift the focus of mainstream social stratification research away from economic and occupational outcomes to incorporate family formation patterns, both as an outcome related to social mobility and as a contributor to social mobility. Across three related papers, I investigate the relationships between social mobility and family formation by focusing on the marriage experiences of first-generation college students and the transmission of status and family structure between mothers and daughters.
Bibliography Citation
King, Michael D. Intergenerational Social Mobility and Family Formation in the United States. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Sociology, The University of Wisconsin - Madison, 2020.