HOMOGAMY

Homogamy is marriage between individuals who are, in some culturally important way, similar to each other. The similarity may be based on ethnicity, religion or socio-economic status.

Homogamy is a descriptive concept only and does not refer to rules or customs about mate selection. Homophily often leads to homogamy (marriage to people with similar characteristics).

Homophily which means love of the same, is the tendency of individuals to associate and bond with similar others. The presence of homophily has been discovered in a vast array of network studies. McPherson, Smith-Lovin and Cook (2001).

Occupational Homogamy in Eight Countries of the European Union, 1975-89 
Jeroen Smits, Wout Ultee, Jan Lammers, University of Amsterdam, and Nijmegen University.
Acta Sociologica, Vol. 42, No. 1, 55-68 (1999) © 1999 Scandinavian Sociological Association
Using data from the Eurobarometers, the association between the occupations of spouses is studied for eight EU countries at several points in time. Most of the association is due to a tendency towards occupational similarity between the spouses. The strength of this tendency differs somewhat between countries and decreases by about 16 per cent between 1975 and 1989, indicating that the social structure of the countries has become more open in this period. By comparing the changes in occupational homogamy of successive birth cohorts over time, we find that when the spouses belonging to a certain birth cohort grow older, their degree of occupational similarity decreases. - asj.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/42/1/55

Party Political Homogamy in Great Britain - Richard James Lampard, Department of Sociology, University of Warwick Coventry, European Sociological Review 13:79-99 1997 
This paper focuses on husbands'and wives' party political identifications in combination. There is a high level of party political homogamy in Great Britain (i.e. spouses tend to share the same party political identification). Statistical analyses show that levels of homogamy vary according to strength of party political identification, parental homogamy, age, and marital status. Levels of party political similarity are also shown to differ between marriage and other social relationships, and between first marriages and remarriages. Attitudes towards homogamy are shown to vary with age. The implications of these findings for theories relating to the origins of homogamy and to the consequences of heterogamy are considered. Broadly speaking, the findings indicate that party political homogamy is a consequence of demographic constraints, utility-maximizing choices, and responses to cultural norms. - esr.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/13/1/79

Why does unemployment come in couples? An analysis of (un)employment and (non)employment homogamy tables for Canada, the Netherlands and the United States in the 1980s 
WOUT ULTEE, JOS DESSENS and WIM JANSEN, University of Utrecht
European Sociological Review 4:111-122 1988 
In this paper we first raise the factual question of whether wives of unemployed husbands have a higher chance of unemployment than wives of employed husbands. Data for Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and the USA in the first half of the 1980s indicate that this indeed is the case. We then seek to explain this finding. 
According to one explanation, (un)employment homogamy is a by-product of educational homogamy combined with a relation at the individual level between education and unemployment. Although the existence of educational homogamy in Canada, the Netherlands and the USA could be ascertained, and although in these countries unemployment is higher when education is lower, these findings could not fully explain the observed extent of (un)employment homogamy in these countries. 
According to a more complex explanation, the phenomenon of (un)employment homogamy will disappear when we allow, after these effects of education, for similar effects of age and region. This explanation was tested for the USA, and did not explain the observed extent of (un)employment homogamy in this country either. 
These findings show that labour market inequalities (unemployed persons have less education, are very young or very old, live in certain places) are aggravated by marriage market outcomes (educational and age homogamy). But, in addition, the finding of persistent couple effects suggests that, apart from labour market and marriage market effects, other processes taking place after marriage make for (un)employment.homogamy. - esr.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/4/2/111

The Effects of Religious Homogamy on Marital Satisfaction and Stability 
TIM B. HEATON, EDITH L. PRATT, Brigham Young University 
Journal of Family Issues, Vol. 11, No. 2, 191-207 (1990) © 1990 SAGE Publications
Previous studies have indicated a relationship between religious homogamy and marital satisfaction and stability. However, most have emphasized denominational affiliation only. Using loglinear analysis of national survey data, this study tested the effects of three types of religious homogamy - namely denominational affiliation, church attendance, and belief in the Bible - upon marital satisfaction and stability. Results indicated that denominational affiliation homogamy is the most critical, with church attendance homogamy contributing slightly to marital success. Similar beliefs about the Bible did not have a statistically significant association with either marital satisfaction or marital stability. - jfi.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/11/2/191

Religious Homogamy and Marital Happiness 
SUZANNE T. ORTEGA, HUGH P. WHITT, J. ALLEN WILLIAM, Jr., University of Nebraska-Lincoln Journal of Family Issues, Vol. 9, No. 2, 224-239 (1988)
Data from a representative sample of 1,070 married Protestants and Catholics were used to examine the relationship between religious homogamy and marital happiness. Although couples may vary in the extent to which they share religious views (e.g., beliefs, values), previous research has treated religious homogamy as a dichotomy; a couple is either homogamous or it is not. A partial explanation for this is that few studies have gone beyond the broad divisions of Protestant, Catholic, and Jew. In the present study religious bodies were classified on the basis of doctrine and ritual, yielding six categories: Baptist, Calvinist, Catholic, fundamentalist, Lutheran, and Methodist. These categories were then used to develop a measure of estimated "religious distance" or degrees of heterogamy. This measure was used to test the hypothesis that the larger the religious distance or disparity, the greater the likelihood of unhappiness with the marriage. The hypothesis was supported by the data. - jfi.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/9/2/224

Social Integration, Heterogeneity, and Divorce: The Case of the Swedish-speaking Population in Finland - Fjalar Finnäs, Institutet för finlandssvensk samhällsforskning, Vasa
Acta Sociologica, Vol. 40, No. 3, 263-277 (1997) © 1997 Scandinavian Sociological Association
The study compared marital stability in Finland with focus on the two language groups. The divorce rate was remarkably lower among the Swedish-speaking minority than among the Finnish-speaking majority. An explanation for this may be differences in social integration. The assumption about the effect of social integration was also supported by covariates measuring urbanization and individual migration. A hypothesis that marital homogamy reduces the divorce rate found support only with respect to the language of the spouses but not with respect to level of education or age. - asj.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/40/3/263

Spatial homogamy in the Netherlands: mapping distances between partners
Karen Haandrikman, Leo van Wissen, Carel Harmsen and Inge Hutter
Abstract: The spatial dimension of the partner market is underexposed in research on recent marriage patterns. When distance decay is applied to partner choice, we can state that the number of unions declines as the distance between potential partners increases. The main research questions of this paper are: To what extent are partners spatially homogamous in the Netherlands? Secondly, can regional and spatial patterns concerning spatial homogamy be identified? We use individual longitudinal data from the population register for the period 1995-2005. For couples who start a shared living, the former addresses of both partners are compared. For all postal codes, distances between partners before shared living are calculated and analysed using a Geographic Information System. Data are aggregated for year of cohabitation and region. We expect the spatial dimension to be important in partner choice, and to be stronger in regions where religion has an important meaning to the population. 
Background: Research has shown that marriage partners do not find each other by accident. Studies on mate selection have found that around the world, partners are homogamous regarding age, education, occupation, social origin, religion and geographical origin. The spatial dimension has been underexposed in research on recent marriage patterns.
In some older studies, spatial homogamy - the similarity of partners regarding geographical background - is mentioned. Geographical distances between marriage partners have been examined in a range of countries and regions varying from India to the Outer Hebrides and the Russian federation. 
In the United States in the 1940s and 50s, so-called propinquity studies were conducted, in which the proximity of bride and groom before marriage is examined. Examples of these studies are Bossard (1932) in Philadelphia, Davie and Reeves (1939) in New Haven, Koller (1948) in Columbus, Ohio, and Ellsworth (1948) in a small town in Connecticut. From most of the studies it was concluded that the number of marriages declines as the distance between potential spouses increases. For example, Bossard (1932) found that one third of all married couples lived within five or less blocks from each other before marriage. A few decades later, some studies investigating geographical distances between marriage partners include Mayfield (1972) in India, Coleman (1979) in Reading, UK, Coleman and Haskey (1986) in England and Wales, and Clegg et al. (1998) in the Outer Hebrides.
For the Netherlands, the existing studies are mostly outdated or based on historical data. We do know that Dutch people tend to marry within their own group, where the ‘own group’ may be defined by religion, social origin, education or cultural behaviour (Hendrickx 1994; Uunk 1996). For instance, Hendrickx (1994) found that different religious groups have different levels of endogamy. Protestant denominations, such as the re-reformed, are more endogamous as far as marriage is concerned, than the more liberal denominations. Studies taking into account spatial homogamy are mostly based on historical data, and most studies deal with compact research units, such as provinces or cities. Examples are studies on the cities of Delft, Arnhem and Gouda (as discussed in Van Poppel and Ekamper, 2004) and the province of Zeeland (Kok 1998, cf Van Poppel and Ekamper 2004), and Drenthe (Boekholt 1990). These studies show that marriages decline in number with increasing distance from the parishes or municipalities under study. Results from other historical studies show that there has been a slight decrease in spatial homogamy in the Netherlands for the period 1900-1950 (Polman 1951). Studies have shown that marital distances differ by age (Clegg et al. 1998; Fisher 1980; Coleman and Haskey 1986), social class (Coleman and Haskey 1986; Van Poppel and Ekamper 2004), and occupational class (Clegg et al. 1998). Moreover, religion or denomination may affect partner choice (e.g. Polman 1951). Religion or denomination is regionally differentiated, just as dialect is. We expect spatial homogamy to be stronger in regions where religion and dialect have an important meaning to the population. - paa2006.princeton.edu/download.aspx?submissionId=60930

Ono, Hiromi. 2006. "Homogamy among the Divorced and the Never Married on Marital History in Recent Decades: Evidence from Vital Statistics Data." Social Science Research 35 (2): 356-383. 
I investigate whether divorced and never married persons tend to marry within their own marital history group. This analysis is a step toward assessing any distinctions that may exist between the never married and the divorced, which informs the distinctions between first marriages and remarriages, across which inequality among coresident children has been observed. Using log-linear models applied to data of marriages formed in a year from the Vital Statistics Marriage Files, I find evidence of a tendency toward marital history homogamy beyond that accounted for by relative group size, education, and age. Specifically, the never married and the divorced are more likely to marry within their marital history group than to intermarry. Results also indicate that, although the tendency toward marital history homogamy unaccounted for by group size, age, and education persisted throughout the period 1970-1988 (i.e., the years for which educational data are available in the Vital Statistics data), it did diminish somewhat. - ipums.org

INTERMARRIAGE AND HOMOGAMY: Causes, Patterns, Trends
Matthijs Kalmijn, Department of Sociology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 24: 395-421 (Volume publication date August 1998) Abstract: People have a tendency to marry within their social group or to marry a person who is close to them in status. Although many characteristics play a role in the choice of a spouse, sociologists have most often examined endogamy and homogamy with respect to race/ethnicity, religion, and socioeconomic status. I first give an overview of hypotheses on the causes of endogamy and homogamy. The various hypotheses that have been suggested in the literature can be distinguished as arguments about three more general factors: (a) the preferences of marriage candidates for certain characteristics in a spouse, (b) the interference of "third parties" in the selection process, and (c) the constraints of the marriage market in which candidates are searching for a spouse. Second, I summarize empirical research by answering four questions: (a) To what extent are groups endogamous and how do groups differ in this respect? (b) How has endogamy changed over time? (c) Which factors are related to endogamy? (d) How do various dimensions of partner choice coincide? Third, I discuss strengths and weaknesses of past research. Strengths include the mass of descriptive work that has been done and the development of a multifaceted theoretical perspective which gives sociological theorizing an edge over psychological and economic theories of partner choice. Weaknesses include the lack of standardization of methods in describing patterns and trends and the relatively weak integration of empirical and theoretical work. - arjournals.annualreviews.org

BIRDS OF A FEATHER: Homophily in Social Networks
Miller McPherson, Lynn Smith-Lovin, Department of Sociology, University of Arizona, Tucson.
James M Cook, Department of Sociology, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 27: 415-444 (Volume publication date August 2001)
Abstract: Similarity breeds connection. This principle—the homophily principle—structures network ties of every type, including marriage, friendship, work, advice, support, information transfer, exchange, comembership, and other types of relationship. The result is that people's personal networks are homogeneous with regard to many sociodemographic, behavioral, and intrapersonal characteristics. Homophily limits people's social worlds in a way that has powerful implications for the information they receive, the attitudes they form, and the interactions they experience. Homophily in race and ethnicity creates the strongest divides in our personal environments, with age, religion, education, occupation, and gender following in roughly that order. Geographic propinquity, families, organizations, and isomorphic positions in social systems all create contexts in which homophilous relations form. Ties between nonsimilar individuals also dissolve at a higher rate, which sets the stage for the formation of niches (localized positions) within social space. We argue for more research on: (a) the basic ecological processes that link organizations, associations, cultural communities, social movements, and many other social forms; (b) the impact of multiplex ties on the patterns of homophily; and (c) the dynamics of network change over time through which networks and other social entities co-evolve. - arjournals.annualreviews.org

Endogamy and homogamy

E-Books