Abstract
Johnsonet al. (Behav. Genet. 17:1–7, 1987) have interpreted an apparent decline in assortative mating for educational attainment in Hawaii as being a consequence of increased social mobility and increased access to higher education. Data on the educational attainments of adult twin pairs and their spouses from the Virginia twin registry are reported which give no indication of a major decline in the intensity of assortative mating. A previous study of a Norwegian population (Heathet al., Behav. Genet. 15:349–369, 1985), in which an increase in equality of educational opportunity had been documented (Heathet al., Nature 314:734–736, 1985), observed remarkable constancy of the marital correlation for educational attainment. There is thus little evidence that decreases in social inequality in a society lead to a decline in assortative mating.
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This work was supported in part by NIH Grants GM30250, AG04954 and GM32732 and by ADAMHA Grants AA06781 and MH40828.
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Heath, A.C., Eaves, L.J., Nance, W.E. et al. Social inequality and assortative mating: Cause or consequence?. Behav Genet 17, 9–17 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01066007
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01066007