BACKGROUNDImmigrants and their descendants often marry a co-ethnic partner despite the abundance of native-born marriage candidates. The prevalence of co-ethnic marriages and intermarriage among migrants is influenced by their integration level and cultural background as much as individual preferences and structural factors.
OBJECTIVEThis paper expands existing literature on intermarriage by analysing first marriages across European countries, distinguishing marriage type (endogamous versus exogamous) and migrant generations (immigrants versus their descendants). Hannemann et al.: Co-ethnic marriage versus intermarriage among immigrants and their descendants 488 http://www.demographic-research.org
METHODSData from seven countries was aggregated using the count-data method and was subsequently pooled and analysed together; first, to estimate unadjusted first marriage rates; second, to calculate marriage risks separately by marriage type; and, finally, to directly compare the risk of exogamous and endogamous marriage.
RESULTSThere are substantial differences in the prevalence of co-ethnic marriage and intermarriage across the migrant groups. Migrants from non-EU countries often show a high prevalence of co-ethnic marriages and a low risk of intermarriage, whereas migrants from neighbouring countries show a relatively high risk of intermarriage.
CONCLUSIONSEthnic background and early socialisation have strong impacts on the partner choice of migrants and their descendants. The results suggest a strong influence of minority subcultures for some migrant groups, but also intergenerational adaptation processes for others.
CONTRIBUTIONThis paper provides an up-to-date comparison of intermarriage rates across seven European countries and two migrant generations, presenting evidence of both similarities and differences across countries.
Research with regard to changes in partnership formation has been hampered by a lack of comparative data. The Family and Fertilify Stirveys (FFS) programme ofthe 1990s provided evidence from eight countries ofthe region, but due to the timing of data collection, (in the majorify of Eastem European countries, the surveys were completed by 1995), a detailed analysis of the emerging pattems had to be postponed until the following round of comparative surveys. These were undertaken in the mid-2000s within the framework ofthe Generations and Gender (GGS) programme, and in recent years, an increasing number of studies, of individual countries as well as comparative, have examined trends in partnership formation in the region (
Centre for Population Change (CPC). We also express our gratitude to Gunnar Andersson, Laura Bernardi and the reviewers for valuable comments and suggestions on previous versions of this article.
Although inter-ethnic encounters take place in multiple domains of daily life, ethnic intermarriage has typically been studied in relation to places of residence but rarely in relation to workplaces. Focussing on migrants is the most common approach to the study of intermarriage, whereas focussing on native majority population is less frequent. This study investigates an extent to which the share of immigrants at the workplace establishment and in the residential neighbourhood influences the natives' likelihood of choosing a foreign-born partner. The analysis is based on longitudinal register data that cover all residents of Finland in 1999-2014. We focus on native Finnish women and men born from 1981 to 1995. We estimated a discretetime event history model with competing risks, distinguishing the first-partnership formation with a foreign-born partner and a native-born partner. The share of immigrants in the residential neighbourhood and workplace both increase the propensity of choosing a foreign-born partner, but the share of immigrants in workplace tends to have a stronger bearing on the partner choice. High exposure to other ethnic groups in one domain is associated with reduced effect of the additional exposure occurring in another domain. The effect of ethnic diversity at workplace tends to be more pronounced among women. The study contributes to the literature by examining both the independent effect of residential and workplace contexts on the formation of ethnically mixed partnership among the native majority population, as well as the interaction between the two.
Although ethnic diversity and the types of interpersonal ties that are experienced in various domains of life may vary considerably, studies regarding the local marriage market rarely focus on the relationship between the formation of mixed-ethnic unions and the ethnic composition of more than one spatial context. In this study, by
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