Marriage by degrees Down Under
An educational divide has opened in Australia between people with degrees, who are more likely to be wealthier and married, than others without post-school qualifications.
Among women aged 30-34, more than 60 per cent with degrees are married, compared with only 53 per cent of those who gained no qualifications after leaving school.
Similarly, men with degrees are most likely to be married or living with a partner, while those who did not go on to further study after school are least likely. Among men aged 40-44, one in three with no post-school qualification lives alone - double the proportion of those with a degree.
A study by Monash University researcher Genevieve Heard has revealed a remarkable change in marriage over the past 10 years: the more educated people are, the more likely they are to be married - the reverse of the 1990s.
Using Bureau of Statistics data, Dr Heard compared marriage rates and income levels among Australian men and women with and without degrees over the past decade. She found there are fewer low-income than high-income men who are married and fewer low-income men than high-income men with partners.
'We are witnessing the redistribution of marriage,' Dr Heard said in a report on the research.
She said the pattern pointed to a disturbing phenomenon already evident in America: access to the 'means of family formation' is increasingly dependent on the economic resources for both sexes.
