Perhaps your mother or someone else urged you to marry well. That means different things to different people. Some may pine for the types of epic romance that typified novels written by Henry James or Jane Austen. Or one may opt for a union with positive economic consequences. As reported by the New York Times, many already successful people are seeking other successful people with whom to settle.
The result is that an investment banker may marry another investment banker rather than a high school sweetheart. Whether measured in terms of income or education, there are more so-called power couples today than in the past, a manifestation of a phenomenon known as assortative mating, or more generally the paring of like with like.
A study of Denmark by Gustaf Bruze indicated that about half of the anticipated financial gain of attending college derived not from better employment prospects, but from the chance to meet and marry a higher earning spouse. Economists are not immune to assortative mating. In two thousand and seven, an article in the New York Times cited thirteen up and coming economists. Perhaps the most striking fact was that six of this group were married to one another.
