Gendered outcomes? Educational assortative marriages, gender ideology, and depressive symptoms in China

Traditionally, the educational hypergamy dominates in most societies due to men's higher educational attainment and advantages in market work. Women in hypogamy showed greater physical and mental health disadvantages because it goes against the traditional gender ideology about marriage and results in stress. However, the recent rise in women's education and the subsequent changes in people's attitude toward assortative marriages may alter this association.

Using four waves of data from the nationally representative survey-China Family Panel Studies (2012-2020, N = 31,884), we paired married respondents with their spouses and examined how educational assortative marriages were related to the depressive symptoms of wives and husbands by multilevel linear model analyses. We also tested how gender ideology about marriage might moderate this association.

Compared to those in homogamy, women in hypergamy (hypogamy) were less (more) depressed, while men in hypergamy (hypogamy) were more (less) depressed. Traditional gender ideology led to even more depressive symptoms among wives in hypogamy.

The findings should be interpreted as associational rather than causal, because we cannot establish a causal relationship without individuals' depressive symptoms before marriage, though a wide range of confounders has been controlled.

Against the conventional expectation that hypogamy leads to more depressive symptoms, both women and men who had less-educated spouses than themselves exhibited more depressive symptoms, whereas those with more-educated spouses were less depressed. Aside from the traditional gender norms, the practical needs, such as higher living standards and socioeconomic status, might influence how educational assortative marriages affect people's depression.