Effects of Early U.S. Compulsory Schooling Laws on Educational Assortative Mating: The Importance of Context

Analysis of log-linear and log-multiplicative models of male household heads ages 36 to 75 in the 1940 U.S. census data reveals that assortative mating by education decreased with the laws in the South but increased in the North, suggesting that the implications of educational expansion for marital sorting depend on context.