by Ken Burchfiel (@KBurchfiel3)
“[H]ypergamy turns out to be a stubborn thing,” Kay Hymowitz wrote in a 2020 IFS blog post, adding, “It seems that the highly-credentialed alpha female still prefers a mate above her pay grade.”
But has hypergamy—defined in this article as marrying someone with a higher income—remained the norm for young American women since then? Or have shifting social and economic trends narrowed, or even eliminated, average differences in income between brides and grooms?
To explore these questions, I evaluated recent American Community Survey (ACS) data for newly-married and never-married adults ages 18-39.1 Because second marriages, caring for children, and school enrollment could influence personal incomes, I focused on adults who were not in school, had no household children, and had not been previously married.
