Educational assortative mating after divorce: a competing risks analysis using a large survey in Flanders (Belgium)

Also in Belgium, higher-order unions are playing an increasingly important part in family life. How social, economical and cultural characteristics are associated with the timing and risk to remarry or recohabit educationally homogamous/heterogamous is however not very well known. Yet, research about educational assortative mating patterns can give us insights into factors of attractiveness on the remarriage market and is relevant for understanding and predicting the reproduction of social inequality. Through analyzing data from 3050 repartnered men and women, we examine if higher order unions are more or less strongly homogamous than first marriages and how the patterns observed among first marriages influence the patterns observed in higher-order unions. First descriptive results show only small differences in educational assortative mating patterns before and after divorce. Competing risks models suggest that there is a kind of continuity over the subsequent unions that divorcing people are forming in their life courses.