People who work in farming, fishing and forestry are more likely than those in other professions to marry someone with a similar job.
Writing on economics website Priceonomics, Daniel Kopf looked at data relating to 40 million couples gathered for the American Community Survey in 2012. This annual statistical examination of the US population divides professions into 25 broad categories.
No less than 25 per cent of those working in ‘fishing, farming and forestry’ were married to someone in the same professional category, he found. According to the researcher:
“This high rate may be because there is a less diverse mix of occupations available to people in rural communities compared to urban ones.”
Those in ‘management’ were the next most likely, with 19 per cent married to someone in the same profession, closely followed by ‘sales’, at 18 per cent. Sixteen per cent of those working in ‘education’, ‘healthcare’ and ‘industrial production’ had a husband or wife in the same field, as did 15 per cent of the lawyers surveyed.
Meanwhile, a tiny one per cent of those working in ‘construction and mining’ had married someone in the same profession, and ‘construction’ and ‘maintenance’ did little better, with just two per cent.
When he examined gender differences, Kopf found that men in professions dominated by women – such as teaching and nursing – were more likely than others to marry someone in the same field: around a third of such men had done so. Similarly, more than a third of women working in construction agriculture and industry had a husband in the same line of work, along with a quarter of those in transportation and industry.
Kopf noted:
“The likelihood of marrying within your profession varies substantially by gender. For instance, Construction couples are relatively unlikely because there are so few women in this occupation group, but for women in Construction the probability of having a husband who works in construction is extremely high.”
Photo by Solitude via Wikipedia
