Educational Assortative Mating and Household Income Inequality: Evidence from Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, and South Africa
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摘要
This paper provides new evidence on educational assortative mating (PAM) and household income inequality in Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, and South Africa, and introduces a methodological approach that isolates pure sorting from educational expansion [page::2]. PAM exists across all education levels, with the strongest sorting among the highly educated; after controlling for shifts in education, overall PAM declines over time, not primarily driven by expansion [page::7]. The observed minimal impact of changes in sorting on inequality arises because decreases among the highly educated offset increases among the least educated, yielding only small changes in the aggregate inequality [page::17]. While the findings largely reassure about the effect of sorting on inequality, they signal rising marginalization at the bottom of the educational distribution, underscoring the need to address opportunities for the least educated [page::3].
