The Reversal of the Gender Gap in Education and Trends in Marital Dissolution.
Level 3 - non-randomized controlled study
Non-randomized observational cohort study analyzing marital dissolution over time
PubMed 25364012 · doi:10.1177/0003122414539682
What was done
The authors analyzed trends in marital dissolution in the United States using data on heterosexual marriages formed between 1950 and 2004. They assessed whether the historical link between a wife having more education than her husband and marital dissolution changed across marriage cohorts over time.
What was found
No numerical estimates, percentages, or hazard ratios are reported in the abstract. Marriages where wives had more education than their husbands were previously associated with an elevated risk of dissolution, but this association disappeared in more recent cohorts. In addition, the relative stability of marriages between educational equals increased over time.
Why it matters
The paper demonstrates that a wife's educational advantage is no longer a risk factor for divorce in the United States, showing an empirical shift toward egalitarian partnership models.
Limits
The abstract does not disclose the sample size, specific dataset used, or quantitative effect sizes. The observational design is subject to potential unmeasured confounding related to socioeconomic shifts and marital norms.