Educational Hypogamy in India

Background Increase in Women's education in India, is closely followed by declining hypergamy and increasing hypogamy, contrary to the global trends. Two trnds associated with this development suggest the possibility that this educational hypogamy is a product of status exchange: an increase in educational hypogamy among lower caste groups an a slow rise in caste exogamy. Objetives The prime objective of this paper is to determine whether status exchanges can explain educational hypogamy in India. The initial assumptions are that educational hypogamy can be explained by 'marrying up' by the caste of the husband, and women who belong to higher castes (who have less to gain by castes), are 'marrying up' by the occupation of the husband. Methods and Results Data from the Indian Demographic and Health Survey (2015-2016) and logistic regression models have been used to address the research question. Findings suggest that the education trade-off with social and economic exchanges are interconnected, which is affected significantly by the caste group that women and their husband belong to. When marrying, less-educated men, the preference to rise by caste is high among the lower-caste women, while the preference to rise by occupation is important among Women belonging to higher castes. Contribution This paper presents new evidence to reveal the existence of socioeconomic exchanges of education, caste and occupation in the Indian marriage market. It seems that the growth in educational achievement for Indian women is not diminishing social inequalities but providing another means by which social status can be exchanged