Movie Star Marriages
June 2, 2011
Even movie stars tend to choose spouses with similar education levels.
Podcast: Play in new window
Transcript
BOB HIRSHON (host):
Mate choice in Hollywood…I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.
People tend to choose spouses who are about as educated as themselves. But that could be because they live, work, and go to school with similarly educated people, so odds are they’ll date them too. To find out, economist Gustaf Bruze, of the Aarhus School of Business and Social Sciences in Denmark, looked at a unique set of marriages: those of top movie stars.
GUSTAF BRUZE (Aarhus School of Business and Social Sciences, Denmark):
They’re very different in the sense that they’re not sorted by education in the workplace and they don’t meet their spouses when they’re studying.
HIRSHON:
What’s more, he says education doesn’t correlate with a movie star’s success, whether it’s measured in Oscars or box office receipts. Yet, Bruze found that Hollywood A-listers still tend to choose mates with comparable educations. The work suggests that something other than money or social sorting is behind our educational matchmaking. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.
