I Am Pro Divorce but Wouldn’t Marry a Divorced Person: Educational Differences in Willingness to Mary a Divorce Person in South Korea

Research on assortative mating based on individuals’ marital history (i.e., marriages between never-married and divorced) remains sparse. The extent to which never-married individuals marry divorced people may reveal society's openness toward divorce. Although people in many societies have increasingly become open to divorce, it is not clear whether such open attitudes toward divorce in general reflect increased willingness to marry a divorced person. Investing educational differences in the overall attitudes toward divorce and willingness to marry a divorced person can highlight the potential disparity between the two. College-educated people may display more open attitudes toward divorce as such attitudes may be considered as a desirable norm. However, give strong tendency of homogamy by various factors including education among college-educated individuals, it remains to be seen to what extent college-educated people are willing to marry a divorced person consistently with their generally open attitudes toward divorce. Utilizing data from the 2018 National Fertility and Family Health and Welfare Survey, complemented by another online survey conducted in 2022, this study examines educational differentials in attitudes toward divorce and willingness to marry a divorced person among never-married people in South Korea. Our findings reveal that while college-educated individuals are more open to the general idea of divorce, they are less inclined to marry divorced individuals, especially those with children. This result suggests potential persistence of assortative mating based on marital history, particularly among the highly educated, indicating that underlying perceptions and stigma associated with divorce continue to influence marital partner choices in Korea. We discuss the results in connection with the broad literature of assortative mating and inequality.