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This study explores the relationship between parental educational similarity – educational concordance (homogamy) or discordance (heterogamy) – and children’s health outcomes. Its contribution is threefold. First and foremost, I use longitudinal data on children’s health outcomes tracking children from age 1 to 15, thus being able to assess whether the relationship changes at key life-course and developmental stages of children. This is an important addition to the relevant literature, where the focus is solely on outcomes at birth. Second, I look at different health outcomes, namely height-for-age (HFA) and BMI-for-age (BFA) z-scores, alongside their dichotomized counterparts, stunting and thinness. Third, I conduct the same set of analyses in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam, thus providing multi-context evidence from countries at different levels of development and with different socio-economic characteristics and gender dynamics. Results reveal important heterogeneity across contexts. In Ethiopia and India, parental educational homogamy is associated with worse health outcomes in infancy and childhood, while associations are positive in Peru and, foremost, Vietnam. Complementary estimates from matching techniques show that these associations tend to fade after age 1, except in Vietnam, where the positive relationship persists through adolescence, thus supporting the homogamy-benefit hypothesis not only at birth, but also across the early life course. Insights from this study contribute to the inequality debate on the intergenerational transmission of advantage and disadvantage and shed additional light on the relationship between early-life conditions and later-life outcomes in critical periods of children’s lives.

Increasing female educational attainment across OECD countries is making hypogamy a widespread phenomenon. This trend provides an opportunity to re-examine the effects of educational assortative ma...

How does demographic and religious context relate to interracial relationships among same-sex and different-sex couples? Using couple data from the 2012 to 2014 American Community Surveys matched to aggregate data from the 2010 Census and 2010 Religious Congregations and Membership Study, we test how heterogamy patterns for same-sex and different-sex couples vary by the demographic and religious makeup of cities, using multinomial logistic regressions to compare interracial and same-race couples. We find that same-sex couples are more likely to be in a White/Black interracial pairing than different-sex couples. White partners are more likely to be in an interracial relationship if they are in a city with a large minority group population. In addition, context is differently associated with interracial unions for same-sex and different-sex couples, varying for each racial combination.

In China, a critical challenge for rural-to-urban migrants planning to settle down is to convert their rural hukou (household registration) to an urban one through a limited set of de jure channels...

Data from the 2010–2012 National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (NATSAL-3) are used to document trends and patterns in where co-resident couples in Britain first met, focusing specifically on the rapid rise of meeting online, which both echoes and differs from a corresponding US increase; in Britain, meeting online largely appears to have substituted for meetings in settings to which access is relatively unrestricted, for example, pubs and public places. While meeting online appears widespread across British society, variations are identified and linked to ideas from the online dating and place of meeting literatures. Offline partner availability and how well the processes within offline and online settings suit particular types of people are interpreted as underpinning many of these variations. Perhaps surprisingly, meeting online does not appear class-related, and involves levels of socio-demographic homogamy that do not differ systematically from those for compositionally heterogeneous offline settings.

The emergence and persistence of polymorphism within populations generally requires specific regimes of natural or sexual selection. Here, we develop a unified theoretical framework to explore how polymorphism at targeted loci can be generated and maintained by either disassortative mating choice or balancing selection due to, for example, heterozygote advantage. To this aim, we model the dynamics of alleles at a single locus A in a population of haploid individuals, where reproductive success depends on the combination of alleles carried by the parents at locus A. Our theoretical study of the model confirms that the conditions for the persistence of a given level of allelic polymorphism depend on the relative reproductive advantages among pairs of individuals. Interestingly, equilibria with unbalanced allelic frequencies were shown to emerge from successive introduction of mutants. We then investigate the role of the function linking allelic divergence to reproductive advantage on the evolutionary fate of alleles within the population. Our results highlight the significance of the shape of this function for both the number of alleles maintained and their level of genetic divergence. Large number of alleles are maintained with substantial replacement of alleles, when disassortative advantage slowly increases with allelic differentiation . In contrast, few highly differentiated alleles are predicted to be maintained when genetic differentiation has a strong effect on disassortative advantage. These opposite effects predicted by our model explain how disassortative mate choice may lead to various levels of allelic differentiation and polymorphism, and shed light on the effect of mate preferences on the persistence of balanced and unbalanced polymorphism in natural population.

This paper studies how immigrant–native intermarriages in Sweden are associated with individual characteristics of native men and women and patterns of assortative mating. Patterns of educational- and age-assortative mating that are similar to those found in native–native marriages may reflect openness to immigrant groups, whereas assortative mating patterns that indicate status considerations suggest that country of birth continues to serve as a boundary in the native marriage market. The study uses Swedish register data that cover the entire Swedish population for the period of 1991–2009. The results from binomial and multinomial logistic regressions show that low status of natives in terms of economic and demographic characteristics is associated with intermarriage and that intermarriages are characterized by educational and age heterogamy more than are native–native marriages. The findings indicate that immigrant women as well as immigrant men become more attractive marriage partners if they are considerably younger than their native spouses. This is particularly true for intermarriages with immigrants from certain regions of origin, such as wives from Asia and Africa and husbands from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Gender differences in the intermarriage patterns of native men and women are surprisingly small.

À la suite de l’augmentation du niveau d’éducation des femmes, les couples dans lesquels la femme est plus diplômée que son conjoint sont désormais majoritaires en France : l’hypergamie féminine s’est inversée. Cet article actualise ce résultat à partir des enquêtes Emploi de l’Insee, et met en évidence une tendance similaire quoique de moindre ampleur sur le plan professionnel : la proportion de femmes appartenant à une classe sociale (classification EGP) plus élevée que leur conjoint est passée de 13 % en 1969 à 23 % en 2016. Ces tendances sont allées au-delà de ce que l’évolution de la structure de la population impliquait (hypergamie relative). En revanche, on ne relève aucune hypergamie en termes d’origine sociale. La théorie classique liant l’hypergamie à une distribution asymétrique du célibat selon le sexe est pleinement confirmée. Ainsi, si le célibat augmentait à mesure que le diplôme, la classe sociale et l’origine sociale s’élevaient chez les femmes en début de période, cette échelle s’est inversée pour les deux premières dimensions et a disparu pour la dernière. La distribution du célibat des femmes s’est globalement rapprochée de celle des hommes.

© 2018, © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. In this article, we study how potentially conflicting forces of socio-economic modernization and enduring language barriers influenced one of the most intimate acts of social interaction: marriage. In the period during which Belgium underwent social and economic modernization–often thought to have diminished barriers between social groups, increasing the likelihood of social heterogamy–linguistic barriers remained strong. The intriguing question is, what happens if socio-economic modernization coincides with persistent linguistic cleavages. We will study this by looking at marriage formation in communities in the province of (contemporary) Flemish Brabant and the Brussels Capital Region. We ask: How large were the temporal and municipal variations in homogamy by social status in the period 1821–1913? And can modernization and the existence of linguistic divisions explain these variations? We use two types of data: couple data from civil registration records in Flemish Brabant 1821–1913 (N = 333,729), and, for some analyses, context data on the municipality at the time of marriage to a shorter period, 1859–1910, and thus a lower number of marriages (N = 270,151). We find that during modernization a shift took place from homogamy on fathers’ status to homogamy on groom’s status, and we find partial support for the effect of language barriers. ispartof: History of the Family vol:24 issue:1 pages:94-122 status: published

Research has long established that parents who do not share the same religious tradition produce less religious children than parents who do. Therefore, religious heterogamy and its negative effects on religious socialization have been associated with the generational decline of religion in Western societies. How about China, where religion has been resurging in the last few decades? Existing studies suggest two opposing possibilities: the restrictive national context may diminish parental impact on religious socialization, or the family influence withstands contextual pressures. Using the 2007 Spiritual Life Survey of Chinese Residents and logistic regression models, we examine patterns of association between having one or two religious parents during childhood and current religious affiliation, beliefs, behavior, and salience of respondents in China. Analyses reveal that despite China’s atheist education system and strict religion policies, having at least one religiously affiliated parent is associated with increased religiosity compared to having two nonreligious parents. As the number of interreligious marriages rises in Chinese society, religious heterogamy contributes to the growth of religion among younger generations. Whereas religious heterogamy in the West has a secularizing effect on the next generation and contributes to religion’s decline, religious heterogamy in secular nations such as China has a religionizing effect and contributes to religion’s rise.

Background: From a historical perspective, the transition from a pre-industrial to a modern society is associated with increasing social status heterogamy. As individuals' acquired characteristics became more important for partner selection than inherited class status, the importance of status homogamy declined and marrying outside one's own social group became more frequent. Objective: We investigate educational heterogamy in a university town at the end of the 19th century. We ask whether marriage of unequally educated partners is related to dissimilarity in the partners' other characteristics. Ethnic background, origin (place of birth), and age difference between the spouses are considered as characteristics that may associate with sorting into educationally heterogamous unions. Methods: The analysis uses data from the 1897 census in Tartu. Using logistic regression modelling, we estimate how age difference, origin heterogamy, and ethnic heterogamy of the spouses associate with educational heterogamy. Results: The results indicate a positive relationship between educational heterogamy and marrying outside one's own ethnic or origin group, but no effect for spousal age difference. Conclusions: Our study provides new evidence about marriage markets during modernisation, specifically regarding the role of education. We show that educationally heterogamous unions in Tartu were often also more heterogamous in terms of partners' background characteristics. This suggests that the partner's education may have motivated intermarriage by ethnicity and origin. Contribution: Previous literature on this period has focused on social homogamy based on occupational information, while research on educational assortative mating mostly exists for the second half of the 20th century and later. We contribute by studying the importance of education in marital selection in the early phase of educational expansion and economic modernisation.

Drawing on data from the American Community Survey, we compare patterns of assortative mating in first marriages, remarriages, and mixed-order marriages. We identify a number of ascribed and achieved characteristics that are viewed as resources available for exchange, both as complements and substitutes. We apply conditional logit models to show how patterns of assortative mating among never-married and previously married persons are subject to local marriage market opportunities and constraints. The results reveal that previously married individuals “cast a wider net”: spousal pairings are more heterogamous among remarriages than among first marriages. Marital heterogamy, however, is reflected in systematic evidence of trade-offs showing that marriage order (i.e., status of being never-married) is a valued trait for exchange. Never-married persons are better positioned than previously married persons to marry more attractive marital partners, variously measured (e.g., highly educated partners). Previously married persons—especially women—are disadvantaged in the marriage market, facing demographic shortages of potential partners to marry. Marriage market constraints take demographic expression in low remarriage rates and in heterogamous patterns of mate selection in which previously married partners often substitute other valued characteristics in marriage with never-married persons.

This paper presents the general determinations of interculturalism, intercultural communication, marriage and mixed marriage. Attention is directed to the general conditions that are conducive to mixed marriages, as well as the conditions that inhibit them. In the focus of consideration are the mixed marriages in Vojvodina and features of heterogamy that occurs in this region, while the analysis derived from the available data of the 2011 Census in Serbia. Special attention was paid to the frequency of heterogeneous marriages in relation to the total number of marriages in Vojvodina for the period from 2003 to 2013. The paper also discusses some indicators of the manifestation of interculturalism in mixed marriages, and points to the need and possible directions for their more detailed study.

Горанци склапају углавном етнички хомогене бракове. Постоји такође пракса избора брачног партнера у оквиру једног села. Сеоска ендогамија је присутна у оквиру горанске заједнице у континуитету један дужи период. Миграције становништва из Горе обележиле су како 20. тако и почетак 21. века. Уколико узмемо у обзир да Гора представља средину са интензивним и бројним исељавањима становништва и да миграције могу да утичу на промене у оквиру постојеће праксе избора брачног партнера, питање везе између миграција горанског становништва и етничке хомогамије/хетерогамије се чини потпуно оправданим. Нарочито ако се узме у обзир да већина мојих саговорника подржава праксу склапања хомогамних бракова јер сматра да она доприноси складним односима у браку и практиковању културних особености горанске заједнице. У раду сагледавам и образлажем праксу избора брачних партнера код Горанаца који живе у Београду и Тутину. Друга половина 20. и прва деценија 21. века чине хронолошки оквир истраживања. На основу анализа емпиријске грађе и релевантне литературе закључујем да миграције нису значајније утицале на праксу избора брачног партнера. Уједно закључујем да етнички хомогамни бракови не успоравају процес интеграције. For the most part, the Gorani enter ethnically homogenous marriages. Marrying into the same village is also a common practice. This village endogamy has continuously been present in the Gorani community for a longer period of time. Migration of population from the Gora region has been characteristic for the most of the 20 th century and the beginning of the 21 st . Considering the fact that Gora is an area of intensive and populous emigration and that migrations can influence changes in the current practices of choosing the spouse, the issue of the relation between the Gorani migrations and ethnic homogamy/endogamy seems entirely relevant. This also stands true given that the majority of the informants endorse the practice of homogamous marriages, believing that it contributes to harmonious relations in the marriage and to practicing of the Gorani community’s cultural specificities. In this paper I am presenting and interpreting the practices of choosing marital partners among the Gorani living in Belgrade and Tutin from the second half of the 20 th until the beginning of the 21 st century. Based on the analysis of the empirical data and relevant literature I argue that migrations have not significantly influenced the practice of the selection of the spouse, as well as that ethnically homogamous marriages are not slowing down the process of integration. Тема броја – Истраживање миграција (ур. Јадранка Ђорђевић Црнобрња и Мирослава Лукић Крстановић) / Topic of the Issue – Research of Migrations (eds. Jadranka Đorđević Crnobrnja and Miroslava Lukić Krstanović)

By integrating the complementary needs theory of mate selection and the notion of complementary assets into the research of family business, we propose that three components of spousal capital comp...

This study examines patterns of homogamy and heterogamy and their implications for couple’s fertility behaviour. Data were obtained from demographic and health surveys conducted in Ghana, Nigeria and Zambia between 2001 and 2014. The study population were couples in a monogamous union where wives were aged 35 years and over: 1785 in Ghana, 3185 in Nigeria and 3175 in Zambia. Results of the descriptive analysis show that educational, religious and ethnic homogamy and occupational heterogamy were predominant among the couples and mean children ever born varied according to couples’ characteristics. The significant predictors of fertility as revealed in the multivariate analysis included educational homogamy and heterogamy, occupational homogamy, age difference and religious and ethnic homogamy. To expedite fertility transition in the three countries and other sub-Saharan African countries, programmes and policies aimed at reducing fertility in the region should incorporate strategies that focus on t...

Many young Protestants in the Chinese city of Xiamen marry a non-Christian spouse. How does religious heterogamy illuminate the social and ritual boundaries created by Protestants in Xiamen? Considering the function and permeability of these metaphoric boundaries, how should we visualize them? This article draws on data collected between August 2014 and February 2016. Intermarriage with non-Christians is condemned by most ministers in Xiamen, but it is an essential option for young women who far outnumber marriageable men in most church communities. The resulting weddings are marked by a search for compromises among the bride and groom, their parents, and the social communities for whom their parents host the wedding. It is argued that in terms of function and permeability, the social and ritual boundaries of Protestantism in Xiamen are less like barbed-wire fences than like the gates of a subway system, or the emergency exit of a shopping mall. Since a central aim of Chinese Protestants is to recruit more people to the faith, there is room for women to briefly exit the community and to re-enter with a converted husband. This focus on boundaries as metaphors may contribute to the field of interreligious studies, where boundaries are a key concept.

Thèse sous la direction de Michel Bozon

Social cohesion – particularly with regard to the integration of migrants – is primarily measured in terms of education, labour market participation, unemployment, income levels and poverty. When seen from a historical long-term perspective (considering the migrations of Homo sapiens in the past 300,000 years) admixture merged members of diverse groups and forged – in addition to social ties – ‘strong biological ties’ of kinship, proposing that religious heterogamy is a long-term layer of social cohesion. Accordingly, this study investigated, on the basis of more than 600,000 men and women aged 26–35 years from Austria 2001, Germany (West) 1987, Ireland 2011, Portugal 2011, Romania 2011 and Switzerland 2000, which demographic characteristics foster religious heterogamy, controlling for various confounding factors using linear mixed modelling. By far the most important factor explaining religious heterogamy was the share of adherents to an individual’s religious group in their area of residence. It can be concluded that the rate of intermarriage declines with the increasing size of an individual’s religious group in their area of residence. From a long-term perspective the lack of familial ties (and conjoint offspring) between religious groups could lead to a lack of social cohesion.

Phenotypic invariance—the outcome of purifying selection—is a hallmark of biological importance. However, invariant phenotypes might be controlled by diverged genetic systems in different species. Here, we explore how an important and invariant phenotype—the development of sexually differentiated individuals—is controlled in over two dozen species in the frog family Pipidae. We uncovered evidence in different species for 1) an ancestral W chromosome that is not found in many females and is found in some males, 2) independent losses and 3) autosomal segregation of this W chromosome, 4) changes in male versus female heterogamy, and 5) substantial variation among species in recombination suppression on sex chromosomes. We further provide evidence of, and evolutionary context for, the origins of at least seven distinct systems for regulating sex determination among three closely related genera. These systems are distinct in their genomic locations, evolutionary origins, and/or male versus female heterogamy. Our findings demonstrate that the developmental control of sexual differentiation changed via loss, sidelining, and empowerment of a mechanistically influential gene, and offer insights into novel factors that impinge on the diverse evolutionary fates of sex chromosomes.

Contrary to expectations of joint decision-making, a substantial minority of older married couples report only one spouse possessing an advance directive. Using Health and Retirement Study data, the authors examined advance directive discordance among heterosexual married couples in which at least one spouse had completed an advance directive. It was predicted that spouses who differed in age, self-rated health, or race/ethnicity would be more apt to adopt individualistic as opposed to relational motivational stances, resulting in higher odds of nonmatching advance directive status. Heterogamy did not account for discordance, but couples in which one or both spouses attended some college were more likely to report advance directive concordance. In contrast, couples in which one or both spouses were non-White were more likely to display advance directive discordance. Study results raise concerns about the effectiveness and reach of advance care planning promotion efforts among low-education and non-White older married adults.

This study examines the effect of religious heterogamy on the transmission of religion from one generation to the next. Using data from 37 countries in the 2008 Religion III Module of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), I conduct a cross-national analysis of the relationship between parents&rsquo, religious heterogamy and their adult childrens&rsquo, religious lives. By estimating fixed effects regression models, I adjust for national-level confounders to examine patterns of association between having interreligious parents during childhood and level of adult religiosity as measured by self-rated religiousness, belief in God, and frequencies of religious attendance and prayer. The results indicate that having religiously heterogamous parents or parents with dissimilar religious attendance patterns are both associated with lower overall religiosity in respondents. Parents&rsquo, religious attendance, however, mediates the relationship when each parent has a different religion. Having one unaffiliated parent is associated with lower religiosity regardless of parents&rsquo, levels of religious attendance. The negative impact of parents&rsquo, religious heterogamy on religious inheritance is independent of national-level factors and has implications for anticipating changes in the religious landscapes of societies characterized by religious diversity and growing numbers of interreligious marriages.

Using data from a nationally representative sample of married fathers of school-aged children, we examined the association between religious heterogamy of parents and fathers&rsquo, involvement in children&rsquo, s lives. We further examined whether that association is mediated by marital quality and father&ndash, child religious discord. Results showed that greater religious heterogamy is associated with less interaction and more relational distance between fathers and children. Results also suggested that fathers&rsquo, reports of marital happiness play an important role in mediating the association between religious heterogamy and paternal engagement. We concluded that religious fathers are more involved in their children&rsquo, s lives insofar as their wives are equally religious and they are in happy marriages.

International audience; In the last decade, progress has been made in methods to identify the sex determination system in plants. This gives the opportunity to study sex chromosomes that arose independently at different phylogenetic scales, and thus allows the discovery and the understanding of early stages of sex chromosome evolution. In the genus Silene, sex chromosomes have evolved independently in at least two clades from a nondioecious ancestor, the Melandrium and Otites sections. In the latter, sex chromosomes could be younger than in the section Melandrium, based on phylogenetic studies and as no heteromorphic sex chromosomes have been detected. This section might also exhibit lability in sex determination, because male heterogamy and female heterogamy have been suggested to occur. In this study, we investigated the sex determination system of two dioecious species in the section Otites (Silene otites and its close relative Silene pseudotites). Applying the new probabilistic method SEX-DETector on RNA-seq data from cross-controlled progenies, we inferred their most likely sex determination system and a list of putative autosomal and sex-linked contigs. We showed that the two phylogenetically close species differed in their sex determination system (XY versus ZW) with sex chromosomes that derived from two different pairs of autosomes. We built a genetic map of the sex chromosomes and showed that both pairs exhibited a large region with lack of recombination. However, the sex-limited chromosomes exhibited no strong degeneration. Finally, using the "ancestral" autosomal expression of sex-linked orthologs of nondioecious S. nutans, we found a slight signature of dosage compensation in the heterogametic females of S. otites.

This study analyses social heterogamy in western and southern Finland during the early stages of industrialisation, from 1700 to 1910. Marriage patterns are examined by comparing the social classes of spouses' parents, which can be understood as the social origin of the spouse. The rate of heterogamy within the freeholder class was only 19.8%, whereas it was 71.1% in the upper classes, 59.7% in the tenant class and 76.5% in the labour class. In addition, only roughly 20-30% of grooms whose fathers were landowners married brides from lower social classes. Certain individual- and family-level characteristics increased the odds of a heterogamous marriage: remarrying, age difference, being an illegitimate child or a single mother, and the first marriages of those in the labour class. Regarding macro-level variables, we found that higher rates of emigration and poor-relief recipients, along with having a larger Finnish-speaking population, led to higher levels of heterogamy. Other issues increasing the odds of heterogamy included living in the more urbanised or industrialised regions and moving to different regions. This study identified strict marriage patterns, which did not significantly change with respect to heterogamy. Nevertheless, indications exist that industrialisation and urbanisation began eroding the prevailing traditions.