Educational Assortative Mating and Children’s Educational Attainment in China

This project examines how educational assortative mating shapes intergenerational educational inequality in China. Although parental education is widely recognized as an important determinant of children’s educational attainment, less is known about how parents’ educational pairing through marriage influences the reproduction or compensation of educational advantages across generations. Using a parent-centered framework, this project plans to investigate whether and how marrying a partner with a different level of education is associated with children’s educational outcomes among individuals with the same educational background. The project will use data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) 2010–2022, a nationally representative longitudinal survey containing detailed information on respondents’ education, family background, marriage, spousal education, and children’s outcomes. The data are used to construct measures of parental educational pairing and children’s educational attainment, and to analyze the relationship between educational assortative mating and intergenerational educational outcomes using a prospective approach.