Family, social structure, choice of partner

This project is part of the discussion on the development of social inequality structures in post-war Germany. In somewhat simplified terms, two main lines of argument can be distinguished here. Firstly, the individualisation thesis, which postulates that the classic hierarchical inequality characteristics have lost their power of differentiation in social and individual perception and thus also for individual action orientations as a result of overall social modernisation processes and are being replaced by other ‘vertical’ differentiation characteristics. This process should lead to the traditional inequality criteria of educational level and professional-social position becoming less and less important for the formation of social circles, i.e. a de-structuring of society is expected. Secondly, a kind of ‘rigidisation thesis’, which essentially argues on the basis of empirical findings that the social structuring characteristics are still determined by the classic hierarchical inequality characteristics, whereby existing structures tend to become more entrenched rather than weaker.

In this study, the question of ‘de-structuring’ versus ‘rigidisation’ is examined using the example of educational and occupational marriage relationships. The basic assumption here is that marriage and family (still) have a more binding character and more far-reaching effects with regard to the long-term reproduction of social inequality (insofar as they form the social and institutional framework for the socialisation of future generations) as well as on the shaping of life than other forms of social interaction, such as neighbourhood, acquaintance or friendship relationships, and are therefore a harder indicator of opening or closing processes than other forms of social interaction.

The central finding of the various education-specific analyses is that the available results, particularly for western Germany, clearly contradict the thesis of social convergence (de-structuring thesis) between members of different educational groups. The analysis of relative homogamy rates as a key indicator of opening or closing processes shows that the tendency to marry partners with the same formal educational qualification is the dominant pattern in marriage relationships and that this hardly changes at all across the cohorts. The strongest closure is found among the most privileged educational group, academics, and the least privileged educational group, secondary school graduates without vocational training. At the upper and lower ends of the educational scale, a cumulation of the respective high and low socio-cultural and economic resources of men and women can therefore be observed.

With regard to class-specific marriage relationships, it can be seen that these exhibit a similar pattern of social permeability as intergenerational mobility processes. On the one hand, this is characterised by the strong concentration of marriage relationships on partners belonging to the same class. Similar to studies on intergenerational mobility, this is most evident among members of the service class and the traditional working classes. On the other hand, marriage relationships are characterised by a massive block formation: Members of the ‘white-collar’ bloc marry each other just as predominantly as members of the ‘blue-collar’ bloc do. Contrary to the widespread assumption that this traditional ‘collar boundary’ can be expected to be broken, if not on a large scale, then at least with regard to marriage relationships between skilled workers and women in white-collar positions, there is no increased positive affinity between these two groups when the class distributions of men and women are controlled for. Even if the conditionality between educational level and class position is controlled for, a clear class dimension can be observed in the marriage relationships. This is particularly evident in the continued strong separation of marriage circles into a manual and non-manual block.

Status of project:

completed

Publications:

Wirth, Heike, 2000: Bildung, Klassenlage und Partnerwahl: Eine empirische Analyse zum Wandel der bildungs- und klassenspezifischen Heiratsmuster. Opladen: Leske + Budrich.

Wirth, Heike, 2000: Selektive soziale Interaktion. Klassenspezifische Heiratsmuster in Westdeutschland. In: Wirtschaft und Statistik (9): 696 - 708.

Wirth, Heike & Lüttinger, Paul, 1998: Klassenspezifische Heiratsbeziehungen im Wandel? Die Klassenzugehörigkeit von Ehepartnern 1970 und 1993. Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 50 (1): 47-77.

Wirth, Heike, 1996: Wer heiratet wen? Die Entwicklung bildungsspezifischer Heiratsmuster in Westdeutschland. Zeitschrift für Soziologie 25 (5): 371-394. [.pdf]