Homogamy among the divorced and the never married on marital history in recent decades: Evidence from vital statistics data

Abstract

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.