This paper documents trends in educational assortative mating in prevailing marriages by Hong Kong Census or By-census data from 1981 to 2006. The increasing trend in intermarriage is found, which supports the prediction of the general openness hypothesis that educational homogamy declines as the level of economic development increases, as well as the hypothesis that higher labor force participation rate of women is associated with less educational homogamy. Furthermore, the trend in the barrier in which one partner has at least lower tertiary level and the other does not, is consistent with Mare’s (1991) hypothesis that the odds of crossing an education barrier are positively associated with the time gap between leaving school and marriage and people with tertiary education are the mos...[ Read more ]

This paper documents trends in educational assortative mating in prevailing marriages by Hong Kong Census or By-census data from 1981 to 2006. The increasing trend in intermarriage is found, which supports the prediction of the general openness hypothesis that educational homogamy declines as the level of economic development increases, as well as the hypothesis that higher labor force participation rate of women is associated with less educational homogamy. Furthermore, the trend in the barrier in which one partner has at least lower tertiary level and the other does not, is consistent with Mare’s (1991) hypothesis that the odds of crossing an education barrier are positively associated with the time gap between leaving school and marriage and people with tertiary education are the most obvious group. However, the fluctuant trend in the barrier in which one partner has university level and the other has less, only partly supports Mare’s hypothesis. Finally, the preference that men would like to marry women with less education still takes the lead in marriage choice, when the marginal distributions of husbands’ and wives’ education are controlled. In general, findings suggest the decreasing social distance between people with different levels of education in Hong Kong from 1981 to 2006.