Partner Choice Preferences. Do the Divorced and the Unmarried Differ in their Marriage and Partner Preferences?

Partner Choice Preferences. Do the Divorced and the Unmarried Differ in their Marriage and Partner Preferences? The research on social homogamy in marriages answers up to a certain point satisfactorily the questions about the nature of assortative mating. Nevertheless, these analyses are not able to examine the tie between partner choice and the preferences of marriage candidates. On one hand, there are the characteristics of the contracted marriages, indicating the results of the assortative mating process while on the other, there are the notions of ideal partner, which all of the marriage candidates more or less explicitly exercise while seeking in the marriage market. This paper has three aims. Firstly, it describes the partner choice preferences by the basic dimensions like the education, age, physical attractiveness and wealth of hypothetical "ideal" partner. The second aim is to distinguish between the segments of population with different partner preferences and to find social determinants of these preferences. Thirdly, it compares the preferences of divorced people with unmarried population in order to contrast the first and repeated choices. To answer these questions we use the data from Generations survey, conducted on general population of the Czech Republic, with the boost samples on divorced people and younger cohort. Sociologia 2009, Vol. 41 (No. 5: 437-456)