Does parental occupation affect marital sorting?

This study investigates the causal impact of parents’ occupations on their children’s marital matching by utilizing an online dating experiment, addressing the challenge of survivor bias inherent in ex-post survey data. Our findings reveal that individuals with parents in higher socioeconomic status (SES) occupations benefit from significant advantages in the marriage market, including better matching opportunities and higher-quality matches. Furthermore, individuals with superior ascribed and acquired traits tend to place greater demands on their potential spouses’ parental occupations. We also find that enhancing one’s own education and income yields more substantial benefits for individuals whose parents have higher SES. Motivation analysis indicates that individuals are inclined to prefer spouses whose parents hold high-income, high-status occupations with lower eldercare costs. Finally, our results suggest that a preference for spouses with high-SES parents may exacerbate inequality and reduce intergenerational mobility.