Assortative mating for weight and attractiveness among dating, cohabiting, and married young adults

Citation

Carmalt, Julie & H (2008). Assortative mating for weight and attractiveness among dating, cohabiting, and married young adults. 2008 Add Health Users Conference. Bethesda, MD: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Carolina Population Center.

Abstract

I use Add Health couples data to estimate patterns of assortative mating for body weight and physical attractiveness among dating, cohabiting, and married young adult couples. This study is the first (to my knowledge) to use log linear models to examine assortative mating for weight and attractiveness. Most previous studies rely on interspousal correlations which provide little information about actual partnering patterns, such as the share of obese persons who marry healthy weight persons. Log linear models (quasi independence, symmetry, crossing parameters) detect patterns of association while controlling for male female partner differences in the marginal distributions of weight or physical attractiveness and union status. Weight is cross classified for women and men using BMI: underweight, healthy weight, overweight, and obese. Physical attractiveness is cross classified as: very unattractive, unattractive, about average, attractive, and very attractive. Several hypotheses are tested. First, weight and attractiveness homogamy will account for much of the association in the data. Second, asymmetry in the data will reflect the importance of physical attractiveness for women. Third, individuals at the extremes of the distributions of weight and attractiveness will be less likely to interpartner than individuals located more centrally in the distributions. Finally, relationships will be less selective in terms of weight and attractiveness as unions progress toward marriage through a “winnowing” process. Results suggest men “marry up” in physical attractiveness and obese individuals experience the greatest social distance from others. Results are consistent with the matching hypothesis and provide some support for the winnowing hypothesis.

URL

https://addhealth.cpc.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/docs/news/users-conference/2008%20Add%20Health%20Users%20Conference%20Abstracts.pdf

Keyword(s)

Weight

Reference Type

Conference proceeding

Book Title

2008 Add Health Users Conference

Author(s)

Carmalt, Julie
H

Year Published

2008

Publisher

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Carolina Population Center

City of Publication

Bethesda, MD

Reference ID

6329