This could very well just be from the small numbers in the survey and group.
In 2016, 1,920,718 people graduated with a BA in the USA. Of those 9,800 were theology majors. The survey data used only covered roughly 26,000 people, which would give us an expected 131 theology majors. 31% of those, or forty, married each other, giving us only twenty surveyed theology-theology marriages over an eight year period.
And there were even fewer Architecture graduates and marriages.
From my perspective, the point is that it's often very easy to come up with a post hoc explanation of why the effect you see is the one you would have expected; and, had the numbers come out the other way, there probably would have been just as many people who could explain why that was the expected outcome.
The power of statistics is that it abstracts away from what should be or what we'd expect to what is, whether it is intuitive or non-. The price paid for this power is that it's very easy to ask questions that seem reasonable but aren't, so that one gets an answer to a precisely defined, rigorous question but misinterprets it as an answer to a possibly ill defined, less rigorous question; and that, to me, is what the parent comment is forcing us to remember.
This is not surprising to me as I expect that the average pair of theology majors has more in common from the perspective of worldview and values, important things to share with a spouse, than the average pair of business majors.
Similarly but subtly different: you can also look at things that matter to people that are more or less common. Theology majors probably have more uncommon important values than business majors do. So it should be much easier to find a non-business major with matching values for business majors, than it is for non-theology majors and theology majors
Theology majors may represent a greater proportion of believers in pre-marital sexual abstinance than do business majors, therefore weighting the odds in favor of marriage.
I don't believe you need a massive set of data to reason that people who study theology are more likely to be religiously inclined though. So I'd say grandparents theory appears more likely.
Some of the context missing is many theology students intend to go into the ministry -- becoming a pastor. Or a missionary. Many of the people on this track are intensely passionate about this calling.
Many couples pair up because their goals coincide and they decide to do this together as life long partners.
Or, to put even more simply, the intersection of their shared values is much much higher than business majors.
This makes sense, given that if you major in theology you are likely going to a small unaccredited school with only a few dozen or a few hundred students from very similar backgrounds.
I'd expect that if you looked at religious studies majors instead, you wouldn't see any especially unusual marriage patterns.
I think even possibly more of a contributor than quantity is "theology major" is a much bigger part of a person's self-identity than "business major". The "business major" (like "communications major") often acts as a neutral default for "I don't know what I really want to do with my life but I still need to get my 4-year piece of paper."
I wonder if there is a degree of separation from other students influencing the homogamy here: theology is often taught in a separate school of Divinity (eg Harvard), and at least some large universities have separate schools of Agriculture and Architecture ( eg Cornell).
The two people I know who teach theology teach at an accredited (Jesuit) university with about eight thousand students. Now, as it happens, one of them is a nun, so she isn't marrying anybody. Not sure about the spouse of the other, but they met well after he had tenure.
I think ReligVoc is training to become a rabbi or minister or whatever. I haven't read the methodology of the actual survey, but I have a hard time believing that many religious studies majors would self-categorize themselves into the theology category rather than just checking off liberal arts or whatever.
> Plus, you're more likely to have strong religious beliefs, and most religions promote marriage.
Theology is the study of religion. You don't need to believe in religion to study it. I knew several theology students at university and none of them were religious.
Do you think people studying Greek mythology are more likely to believe in Zeus?
I’ll echo what another poster said. I was one class shy of a religion minor in college, but I’m an atheist (although was raised catholic). To this day, I spend a lot of time learning more about theology, and it’s entirely independent of my personal religious opinions.
I’m not sure how strongly correlated the study of theology is with personal strong identification of a particular theological belief.
I didn't notice any control for whether the couples went to the same school. It's a well worn trope within Christian circles that people go to christian colleges to find a spouse.
It is a well-worn trope, but it's not just within christian colleges. I've seen it at several universities that have nothing to do with religious schools.
Even then, I think a lot of that is just observational bias from the life situation of people in their early twenties, which is when people often start to settle down. So the most inclined to settle down just happen to be in college.
I'd say this is regional. I've met lots of people in the south with a theology background and it is commonly seen as a good thing and I'd say atheists experience being ostracized far more often when a huge portion of your coworkers and children in your kids' class belong to mega churches where all socializing occurs. Granted, the exact opposite happens in other places in the US. It's all bad, but was just pointing out that your experience isn't typical of what I've seen living in multiple southern states.
I'd like to see whether there's a correlation here between gender imbalance in the particular subject and the marriage rate. I suspect theology is a heavily male-dominated subject, since a large number of the associated careers are either formally male-only or traditionally male-dominated.
I'm wondering if this might be a case where the men outnumber women so much that a high proportion of the women in the field can easily find suitable men to pair off with without going further than their college.
Checking whether other male-dominated subjects have similarly high intra-major marriage rates would test this(I don't know what they are, offhand, but I suspect a lot of STEM subjects might be there), and also doing the gender-reversed study (where it goes by the first marriage of the husband) might get similar results with more female-heavy subjects.
I don't know if it is male dominated, Missionary activity increasingly is dominated by single women, and while pastors and leadership are often male, the entire parachurch and support aspect is probably female dominated.
Religion in the west for the most part is intensely driven by the needs of women, and men for the most part take a figurehead role as leader, while being conspicuously absent from the rank and file. You can look at Christian culture overall to see this, everything from Christian bookstores to Christian movies is overwhelmingly targeted to women, who make up the majority of the market.
If anything my bet is the competition for men is fierce, and ministry tends to be something many women choose instead.
I can't seem to find any hard numbers at the moment, but I believe that the gender ratio for theology is fairly close to even (or, at least quite a bit closer than engineering or other male-dominated disciplines).
Keep in mind that, while there are variations among the individual majors, but in general women tend to be over-represented in the humanities. Also, relatively few humanities majors actually end up working in a discipline that requires their major.
Unless graduates suddenly have their genders reassigned to balance the ratio in their field, this is still relevant. It's not a coincidence that male-dominated fields draw workers from male-dominated majors.
It seems to fit my impression too. But it feels like for STEM this would apply to women.
Most of my girl colleagues from college are married to classmates or other engineers.
For men, they usually are married with women from other areas.
For a similar chart (that is potentially even harder to read and visualize somehow) this came out a couple years ago wrt people actually in certain occupations rather than for graduates in certain disciplines. https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2016-who-marries-whom/
Readit News
In 2016, 1,920,718 people graduated with a BA in the USA. Of those 9,800 were theology majors. The survey data used only covered roughly 26,000 people, which would give us an expected 131 theology majors. 31% of those, or forty, married each other, giving us only twenty surveyed theology-theology marriages over an eight year period.
And there were even fewer Architecture graduates and marriages.
From my perspective, the point is that it's often very easy to come up with a post hoc explanation of why the effect you see is the one you would have expected; and, had the numbers come out the other way, there probably would have been just as many people who could explain why that was the expected outcome.
The power of statistics is that it abstracts away from what should be or what we'd expect to what is, whether it is intuitive or non-. The price paid for this power is that it's very easy to ask questions that seem reasonable but aren't, so that one gets an answer to a precisely defined, rigorous question but misinterprets it as an answer to a possibly ill defined, less rigorous question; and that, to me, is what the parent comment is forcing us to remember.
Or maybe Theology majors have a higher pregnancy rate and "need" to marry more often. ;)
Any theory is as good as any other without more data or a way to test it.
Or perhaps it's because theology majors drink more coffee.
Theory put forward to prove that clearly not all theories are "as good" even if we don't have more data or ways to test them.
Many couples pair up because their goals coincide and they decide to do this together as life long partners.
Or, to put even more simply, the intersection of their shared values is much much higher than business majors.
And since most people religious or not still have urges people that value premarital abstinence will probably get married sooner.
I don't think that was what you wanted to write.
I'd expect that if you looked at religious studies majors instead, you wouldn't see any especially unusual marriage patterns.
I think even possibly more of a contributor than quantity is "theology major" is a much bigger part of a person's self-identity than "business major". The "business major" (like "communications major") often acts as a neutral default for "I don't know what I really want to do with my life but I still need to get my 4-year piece of paper."
The next highest majors are Agriculture and then Architecture. How does that fit into your just-so-story?
Philosophy/ReligiousStudies is the 8th most extreme outlier, right after Liberal Arts.
Further, the article isn't about majors of students getting married, it's about majors of graduates getting married.
Deleted Comment
Dead Comment
Deleted Comment
https://familyinequality.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/spouse-...
Theology is the study of religion. You don't need to believe in religion to study it. I knew several theology students at university and none of them were religious.
Do you think people studying Greek mythology are more likely to believe in Zeus?
I’m not sure how strongly correlated the study of theology is with personal strong identification of a particular theological belief.
Even then, I think a lot of that is just observational bias from the life situation of people in their early twenties, which is when people often start to settle down. So the most inclined to settle down just happen to be in college.
That's unnecessarily harsh and probably wrong.
I'm wondering if this might be a case where the men outnumber women so much that a high proportion of the women in the field can easily find suitable men to pair off with without going further than their college.
Checking whether other male-dominated subjects have similarly high intra-major marriage rates would test this(I don't know what they are, offhand, but I suspect a lot of STEM subjects might be there), and also doing the gender-reversed study (where it goes by the first marriage of the husband) might get similar results with more female-heavy subjects.
Religion in the west for the most part is intensely driven by the needs of women, and men for the most part take a figurehead role as leader, while being conspicuously absent from the rank and file. You can look at Christian culture overall to see this, everything from Christian bookstores to Christian movies is overwhelmingly targeted to women, who make up the majority of the market.
If anything my bet is the competition for men is fierce, and ministry tends to be something many women choose instead.
Keep in mind that, while there are variations among the individual majors, but in general women tend to be over-represented in the humanities. Also, relatively few humanities majors actually end up working in a discipline that requires their major.
But there is some truth to it since many partners meet in college, if not at a job requiring a comparable educational background.