Couple relationships and health: The role of the individual's and the partner's education

A positive correlation between couple relationships and health is well established. However, recent studies indicate that the beneficial effects of couple relationships on health vary substantially according to the characteristics of the relationship and of the partners involved. The present paper examines to what extent partnership effects on physical and mental health differ based on the individual's education, the partner's education and educational homogamy between partners. Our database is the German Socio-Economic Panel for the period of 2002 to 2016. Based on fixed effects analysis, our results show that a highly educated partner is more beneficial for mental and physical health than a partner with low education. In contrast, the effects of partnerships on health do not depend on whether the partners have same or different educational levels. The results also indicate that partnership effects on health depend on mate choice and on the potential to find a highly educated partner. Education-specific partnership effects on mental health are more prevalent for women, and effects on physical health are more prevalent for men.