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As divorce rates go up, so do marriage rates for the college-educated. And these college-educated spouses are less likely to get divorced.
“In a world where half the marriages end in divorce, people aren’t just marrying for the moment anymore,” said Steve Mintz, co-chair of the Council on Contemporary Families and University of Houston sociology professor. “They’re trying to determine how it will sustain. Whether you’re likely to grow together has grown more important.”
The Shift
In the United States, less than 15 percent of students get married while in college, according to University of Texas, Austin sociology professor Norval Glenn.
Studies in the past have suggested that professionally and academically ambitious adults – especially females – were often sidetracked by their goals outside of family life and as a result were less likely to get married at all.
It was illegal for China college students to get married in until 2005.
But sociologists who study marriage now claim the opposite to be true.
Newer studies have found that college-educated women and men are now marrying at a higher rate than those without a college education, with most marrying after graduation.
Glenn said that this trend has been gaining momentum for the past 20 years and can likely be attributed to a change in the qualities potential mates find favorable.
This is likely especially true for men who did not particularly seem to care about the education level of their spouses 25 years ago.
“College-educated women once were not as likely to be married, but for women now, it’s been a big turn-around,” said Glenn. “Now college-educated women are very likely to eventually get married.”
Mintz said that today, college-educated adults probably marry each other because they feel they have more in common.
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