Trends in educational homogamy in Central European Countries between 1976 and 2003 Tomáš Katrňák Faculty of Social Studies Masaryk University Brno

Research theme Educational homogamy in Czech, Slovak and Hungarian society and trends in this homogamy between 1976 and 2003 Educational homogamy is the indicator of “societal openness”, more concretely it is the indicator of educational differences and their role among people (Smits, Ultee, Lammers, 1998a; 1998b) –High educational homogamy means, that people perceive educational differences as high and these differences are reflected in their marital option – in selection of husband or wife –Lower educational homogamy indicates, that in perception of people the educational differences are not significant, the educational differences among people are not reflected in marital selection –For instance Smits, Ultee a Lammers says: “(a) society in which many marriages take place between persons belonging to different social groups (…) can be considered a more open society than one in which few socially mixed marriages occur” (ASR 1998a: 265)

The aim of the research To map educational homogamy in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary To analyze trends in educational homogamy: –In the period of socialism between 1976 and 1989 in all analyzed countries –During the transformation from socialism to capitalism in the first half of nineties of 20th century –In the beginning of the first decade of 21th century in all analyzed countries To answer the question about the trends in educational inequalities indicated by educational homogamy in all analyzed countries

Results of social mobility research in former socialistic countries Gerber and Hout (2005) analyzed intergenerational social mobility in Russian society between 1988 and 2000 and showed that class structure of Russian society is closing, because social fluidity is decreasing and inequalities in labor market are growing. Pollak and Müller (2002) formulated the same result in their comparison of intergenerational mobility in western and eastern part of Germany in nineties of 20th century. In both countries the class structure was closing and social fluidity was going down in this period.

Hypothesis concerning the trends educational homogamy in postsocialistic countries Gerber and Hout (2005) and Pollak and Müller (2002) showed, that we can expect the closing of class structure and the decrease of relative social mobility in former central European socialistic countries in nineties of 20th century Other social scientists (Ultee, Luijkx, 1994) showed that there is negative relationship between relative social mobility and relative educational homogamy Decrease of relative social mobility means the increase of educational homogamy and vice versa It means that we can expect, that relative educational homogamy is increasing in nineties of 20th century and educational diferences are growing (when relative social mobility is decreasing) The question is what happened with educational homogamy between 1976 and 1989 in all analyzed countries???

Data aggregated (tabulated) data All marriages sorted by man’s and woman’s education (elementary, vocational training, secondary, tertiary) in analyzed countries (the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary) in years (1976, 1979, 1982, 1985, 1988, 1991, 1994, 1997, 2000 and 2003 – period was 3 years) Structure of the data: 4 x 4 x 10 x 3 (M x W x Y x C) Source of data: National statistical offices

Type of analysis and standardization of the data Log linear and log-multiplicative analysis, because we can see changes in marginal distributions of men and women getting married in analyzed period in each country Because of comparative reasons it was done in each two-way table random sample M x W by their education The total N for each table was It means that I analyzed sample of marriages in each country (Y x ) The total number of analyzed marriages in all countries was (C x Y x )

Results

Conclusions I Trends in absolute educational homogamy are very similar in all analyzed countries. The lowest relative educational homogamy was in 1976 as well as in 2003 in the Czech Republic, higher relative educational homogamy was in Hungary and the highest relative educational homogamy was in Slovakia From the time point of view we can conclude that the trend in all analyzed countries is the same – this trend has the form of „U“ - from 1976 to the beginning of nineties relative educational homogamy is decreasing in all analyzed countries, during the first part of nineties the relative educational homogamy reaches its minimum in all countries and from the half of nineties relative educational homogamy is in strong increase (the Czech Republic and Slovakia) or in slight increase (Hungary)

Conclusions II If we admit, that changes in relative educational homogamy indicate „educational openness“, it means that educational inequalities is going to the same level, in which they were in the half of seventies of 20th century in all analyzed countries. Socialism (from 1976 to 1989) meant decreasing of educational inequalities, because educational homogamy was in decrease, but the transformation from socialism to capitalism in all analyzed countries means the change of this trend: educational inequalities are in increase in all former socialistic countries at the moment because we can see the increase of educational homogamy in marriage market in all former socialistic countries