The reversal of the gender gap in education has reshaped the U.S. marriage market and could have far-reaching consequences for marriage and family lives. As women increasingly marry men with less education than themselves, does this imply greater economic gender equality in marriage? My dissertation takes a life course approach to answer this question. First, I examine gender asymmetry in educational and income assortative mating patterns among newlyweds. I use log-linear models to analyze data from the 1980 U.S. Census and the 2008–2012 American Community Surveys. I find that between 1980 and 2008–2012, educational assortative mating reversed from a tendency for women to marry up to a tendency for women to marry down in education, whereas the tendency for women to marry men with higher incomes than themselves persisted. Moreover, in both time periods, the tendency for women to marry up in income was greater among couples in which the wife’s education level equals or surpasses that of the husband than among couples in which the wife is less-educated than the husband. The findings suggest that men and women continue to form marriages in which the wife’s socioeconomic status does not exceed that of the husband.



Second, I investigate how educational assortative mating shapes husbands’ and wives’ income trajectories over the course of marriage. I use multilevel dyad models to analyze data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79). Educational assortative mating is captured by three types of educational pairings of spouses: educational hypergamy in which the wife is less educated than the husband, educational homogamy in which both spouses have same levels of education, and educational hypogamy in which the wife is more educated than the husband. I find that change in husbands’ income with marital duration was similar regardless of educational pairings of spouses, whereas change in wives’ income varied by educational pairings of spouses such that wives in educational hypogamy exhibited more positive change in income over the marital life course. The findings suggest that it remains important for husbands to bring income into the family no matter what educational levels they have relative to their wives, whereas the rise in women’s education and in prevalence of educational hypogamy likely protects women from earning less after marriage.



Lastly, I examine how educational assortative mating shapes patterns of female breadwinning status over the course of marriage. I use group-based trajectory models to analyze data from the NLSY79. I find substantial movement in and out of the primary breadwinner role by wives across marital years and great heterogeneity in trajectories of female breadwinning status across couples. In addition, educational assortative mating plays a role in shaping patterns of female breadwinning status: educationally hypogamous couples are less likely than educationally homogamous or hypergamous couples to follow the traditional trajectory characterized by virtually no chance of

achieving a female breadwinning arrangement over the first twenty years of marriage.



Overall, through nuanced analyses of educational assortative mating and income dynamics in couples over the life course, my dissertation advances understanding of consequences of the gender-gap reversal in education for gender equality in marriage.