Female Advantages in Education and Union Formation: The Case of Colombia

Abstract Although the reversal of gender gaps in education has been studied in industrialized countries, less is known about the implications of this phenomenon for union formation in low- and middle-income contexts, where high gender inequalities are persistent. This article fills this gap by studying the case of Colombia, where female advantages in education grew amid the prevalence of hypergamy norms regarding marriage and low economic returns to women's schooling. In particular, I examine whether the role of women's schooling for union entry and educational assortative mating changed as women gained more schooling across cohorts. To this end, I combine Demographic and Health Surveys and Colombia National Censuses, encompassing cohorts born between 1920 and 1980. My findings show that as gender gaps were reduced, the negative association between women's education and union entry increased among younger cohorts, in contrast to recent trends in high-income contexts. Nevertheless, analyses on marital pairings indicate an increase in educational hypogamy, suggesting changes in traditional patterns of assortative mating. These results advance current understandings of the demographic implications of overturning the gender gap in schooling in contexts of high gender inequality.