The Structure of Inter-Occupational Marriages in the United States 1970-2021

The occupation one holds is a major indicator of income, education, cultural and social capital, and day-to-day experiences. As such, understanding the network of re-lations between occupations is a natural sociological question. We explore the structure of inter-occupational marriages in the United States 1970-2021. Using a social network approach, our analysis shows that people marry others from their own occupation and occupations with similar levels of education and income. Further, for each occupation, there exist typical “spousal occupations”, that is, incumbents of many occupations mostly partner with spouses from a small set of other occupations. We link these occupational matches to occupations’ signaling power and broader social interaction structures. These patterns remained mostly constant since the 1970s. However, the structuring power of occupation varies by gender and occupational status. Individuals from higher-status occupations married into a narrower set of occupations, although this equalized in later analyzed periods, with women experiencing this change earlier than men. Finally, occupational marriages influence household inequality, which is due equally to education/income homogamy and occupation-specific marriage patterns. In sum, we show how occupations have substantially structured individuals’ partner choices over the last 50 years, having real consequences for household inequality.