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Married to Mom A new study shows a successful man is more likely to wed a woman with an education level equal to his mother's 
Are successful men more likely to marry a woman just like mom? A recent study by University of Iowa sociologist Christine Whelan finds that nearly 80 percent of high-achieving men - those who earn salaries in the top 10 percent for their age and/or hold a graduate degree - are married to women with college degrees. Nineteen percent are married to women with graduate degrees. "Successful men in their 20s and 30s today are the sons of a pioneering generation of high-achieving career women," Whelan says. "Their mothers serve as role models for how a woman can be nurturing and successful at the same time. One man I interviewed put it like this: 'If your mother is a success, you don't have any ideas of success and family that exclude a woman from working.'" The study, completed with graduate student Christie Boxer, analyzed data from two surveys more than 3,700 Americans conducted in January and May 2006. Sixty-two percent of men whose moms had graduate degrees married fellow graduate degree holders, while 27 percent married women with college degrees. Successful men also believe that education has an effect on motherhood; 68 percent agreed with the statement, "Smart women make better mothers." "These young men saw their mothers as smart women who could choose to work outside the home, and now that they're making decisions about what they want in a wife, it seems that they are choosing similar types of women," Boxer says.
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