Social mobility and partnering: the salience of mobility homogamy

Abstract

Does intergenerational social mobility influence individuals' partner choices? If so, are the socially mobile more likely to partner with someone from their origin or destination class? Or do they, if torn between the socio-cultural milieu of their well-known origins and less familiar destination, engage in ‘mobility homogamy’, opting for similarly mobile partners? The impact of social mobility on partner choice has received scant scholarly attention and, yet, it is an issue that is likely to enhance our understanding of partnering dynamics. Exploiting the German SOEP panel data, our principal finding is that the socially mobile are more likely to match with someone from their destination-rather than origin class. This suggests that the influence of destination-class resources and networks outweighs that of social origins. However, once we take into account also the partner's mobility history, it turns out that the upwardly mobile partner disproportionally with someone who is similarly upwardly mobile. Our analyses provide scant support for the social exchange thesis that individuals might seek to complement a high social destination class with a partner from high social origins; instead, the dynamics that we identify point to the saliency of social networks, individuals' resources, and a general preference for homogamy.