CSI’s Inequality Discussion Groups bring together Cornell faculty and graduate students from around campus to discuss and improve their in-progress research. 

Hyo Joo Lee  (Ph.D Candidate, Sociology)

Title: Educational Assortative Mating and Financial Investment in Children

Abstract: Educational assortative mating has strengthened in the United States in recent decades, but less is known about the relationship between parents' marital patterns and parental financial investment in children. Women made progress in higher education and the labor market, and the returns to higher education increased over time in recent decades. Given this, compared to parents who both have low education or who have mixed levels of education, parents who both have high education may allocate more financial resources to their children, as they have more financial capabilities. Analyzing Consumer Expenditure Data from 1991 to 2019, preliminary results demonstrate that highly educated homogamous parents spend more money on their children, especially on children’s education, than less educated homogamous parents and parents with disparate education levels. Furthermore, the gap between parental financial investment in children across parental marital sorting patterns widened in recent years.