When women have the higher level of education

What are the dynamics in relationships and families where women have a higher level of education than the men? A research project investigating the consequences based on long-term data series has found that this educational edge has contributed little to gender equality.

Culture and Society

by Verena Ahne

October 27, 2026

Over the past decades, girls and women have caught up significantly in terms of education. In some countries, they have already surpassed men in respect of educational attainment. This development results in societal changes affecting, among other things, the criteria for choosing a partner. In the past, it was common for a man to have at least the same – and often a higher – level of education than his wife (hypergamy). Today, there are more and more heterosexual couples in which the woman has a higher level of education (hypogamy). The FWF-funded “HypoFam” project investigated the consequences of this recent societal development.

Is hypogamy option B?

Research has shown multiple times that women prefer to bond with partners who have the same or a higher level of education. As the number of well-educated women continues to rise, the pool of potentially more highly educated partners is shrinking. In this context, principal investigator Nadia Steiber of the University of Vienna speaks of there being a shortage. “Women who prefer a relationship with a partner of similar educational attainment must then decide: do I stay single, or do I opt for plan B?” Plan B is a partner with a lower level of education – the hypogamous relationship. It must be noted, that this does not refer exclusively to university degrees, i.e. tertiary education: a high-school diploma is a higher qualification than a completed apprenticeship.

In Austria, about half of all couples currently have the same educational level, whereas roughly one-quarter are in relationships where either the man or the woman has the higher educational qualification. Couples in which one partner has only a compulsory school certificate and the other a university degree are extremely rare. The most common difference is a one-level difference – such as the combination of a completed apprenticeship (the most common educational attainment among men in Austria) on the one hand with a high school diploma on the other.

HYPOFAM

In many countries, women now hold higher educational degrees than men. The FWF project is investigating how this trend affects couples, their family life, and their children. An interdisciplinary team from the University of Vienna, JKU Linz, and the Institute for Advanced Studies has analyzed large datasets covering all of Austria to address this question.

Differences in Child Penalty by Couple's Educational Composition

And what about equality?

“We wanted to know the impact on a woman’s status within the family when she has a higher level of education than her partner,” explains Steiber. Are hypogamous couples more up with the times – that is, do they have a more equitable division of household chores or a smaller inequality of income as between him and her? Does higher education forestall the typical drop in income after the first child, which is so crudely referred to as the “child penalty”? “The child penalty refers to the fact that a woman’s relative income in the household decreases compared to her husband’s after the first child,” notes Steiber. In other words, women are penalized for having children.

The child penalty

The main focus of the four-year research project was on the socioeconomic development of couples. “For this purpose we used Austrian registry data,” says Steiber. “We started with the birth of the first child and looked at income trends five years before and 20 years after that.”

It is true that the child penalty was somewhat smaller for hypogamous couples. “But it was still substantial,” says Steiber. The average penalty is around 20 percent – meaning the woman’s share of the couple’s income drops from just under 50 percent before the birth of the first child to less than 30 percent by the time the child is ten years old. The penalty is about 10 percentage points smaller for women with a college degree and a partner with a high school diploma or vocational certificate – but it still registers at 10 percent (see graph). “It’s the well-known pattern: women often switch to part-time work after giving birth and are rarely able to make up for the dip in income later on.”

In case of a second child, the average penalty increases by another 12 percentage points. In this context the researchers found a surprising aspect: women in hypogamous relationships are more likely to have a second child than women in relationships where the man has the higher level of education.

Is there not a contradiction with the claim that well-educated women have fewer children overall? “No, this is consistent with current research findings, which show that highly educated women who have a child – that is, who opt for motherhood – are more likely to have a second child than less educated women,” says Steiber. In a follow-up project, the team also plans to investigate whether hypogamous relationships are more likely to break up and whether the educational constellation of the parents influences the baby’s health. The rationale behind this being the theory that relationships that do not conform to the conventional role model are more prone to conflict and stress.

The gender pay gap has little to do with education

Another factor contributing to the persistent income inequality faced by women is the labor market itself. Men who start working after completing an apprenticeship often quickly earn more than their wives, even if the wives have a high school diploma.

“All in all, we see that a woman’s demonstrable educational advantage results neither in financial equality or a better position in the labor market nor in more full-time employment among women with children,” concludes Steiber with a sobering assessment.

That little bit of housework

It was also found that educational attainment has scarcely any impact on the equitable distribution of unpaid household work. The team reached this conclusion based on a data extract from the “Generations and Gender Survey” – www.ggp-i.org. For more than 30 years, this large-scale project has been collecting high-quality data on family dynamics, number of children, intergenerational trends, aging, and more in over 30 countries.

“While we see that women in hypogamous relationships contribute more to household income, and men also have a more positive attitude toward their wives’ employment, this does not improve men’s contribution to household work.” Regardless of their educational attainment, the bulk of unpaid work is still shouldered by women and mothers.

About the project

The project “HypoFam: the impact of increasing hypogamy on families” used large datasets from Austria and Europe to investigate whether and in what way a woman’s higher education affects family life. Factors studied included income levels, the division of labor in the household, the children’s education, and their later choice of partners. The project funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) was a collaboration between the University of Vienna and Johannes Kepler University Linz (JKU) and was completed in July 2026.

Project Website

Mothers and daughters

“At conferences, one often hears the question of whether there is no silver lining at all?’” Steiber notes. “That’s why we also looked at the issue from a cross-generational perspective.” What impact does a mother’s higher level of education have on her children?

It was shown that daughters, in particular, benefit from their mother's having a higher level of education than their father. “They’re more likely to complete a university degree,” says Steiber, adding: “Children tend to model themselves more on the parent of the same sex, which is why sons benefit more from fathers when the fathers have the higher level of education.”

Daughters from hypogamous relationships also demonstrate a higher-than-average likelihood of entering into such a relationship themselves. They adopt the role model they see at home. The combination of these two factors could contribute to a self-reinforcing trend: the pattern of hypogamy further drives women’s educational advantage, because more and more highly educated women pass this advantage on to their daughters, who in turn provide special support to their own daughters.

Perhaps someday we’ll reach a point where these daughters’ educational advantage is truly reflected in equal career paths, equitable income, and a fair division of unpaid work at home.

About the researcher

Nadia Steiber is a sociologist and professor of Social Structure Analysis and Quantitative Methods at the University of Vienna. Her work focuses on labor market and family research. She takes a particular interest in the consequences of life course events such as starting a family or retiring, and in social inequality over the course of a lifetime. Steiber is affiliated with the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS) and the Wittgenstein Centre.