Intermarriage and Socioeconomic Integration

Abstract

Previous studies show that immigrants to the United States married to natives earn higher wages than immigrants married to other immigrants. Using data from the 1980 to 2000 U.S. censuses and the 2005 to 2010 American Community Surveys, we show that these wage premiums have increased over time. Our evidence suggests that the trends are unlikely to be explained by changes in the attributes of immigrants who tend to marry natives but might instead be a result of changes in how these attributes are rewarded in the labor market. Because immigrants married to natives tend to have more schooling, part of the increasing premium can be explained by increases in the value of a college education. We find, however, that even when allowing the value of education and English-speaking ability to vary, intermarriage wage premiums have increased over time. We believe these patterns might be driven by changes in technology and globalization, which have made communication and management skills more highly rewarded in the U.S. labor market.

Time and Generation: Parents’ Integration and Children’s School Performance in Sweden, 1989–2011

“…There is, however, a limited understanding regarding whether intermarriage bequeaths additional advantages or merely reflects already attained social status. Intermarriage as a vehicle for integration has, however, been receiving increased focus in recent years (Dribe and Nystedt 2015; Furtado and Song 2015; Tegunimataka 2017), but selection into intermarriage and the lack of appropriate data make this subject difficult to study. The studies that have focused on intermarriage as an event rather than as an outcome of integration have found that it increases the foreign-born individual’s social network (Goldstein 1999; Laumann et al 1994) and sometimes also improves their labor market outcomes (Dribe and Nystedt 2015; Furtado and Song 2015; Tegunimataka 2017), with benefits also to their offspring (Kalmijn 2015).…”

“…This distinction is made due to the differences that have been found between these groups on educational attainment (Kalmijn 2015). Additionally, by distinguishing the children of two foreign-born parents from children of intermarried parents, this study contributes to a small but burgeoning line of research looking at ongoing individual integration of intermarried immigrants (Dribe and Nystedt 2015; Furtado and Song 2015; Tegunimataka 2017), and expands on this to test for potential intergenerational effects.…”

Divergent Pathways to Assimilation? Local Marriage Markets and Intermarriage Among U.S. Hispanics

“…Immigrants and their U.S.-born coethnic partners may be brought together by cultural similarities, such as language or religion, and shared access to economic resources and social networks. Intermarriage with native-born coethnics may therefore provide immigrants a route to upward social mobility in the United States (Furtado & Song, 2015). The receptivity of U.S.-born Hispanics to such marriages may reflect the rigidity of ethnic boundaries that limit opportunities to marry Whites or other groups.…”

Is there an association between marital exogamy of immigrants and nonmigrants and their mental health? A two-partners approach

“…Having access to host-country-specific social capital may bridge the social/ethnic boundaries between the respective groups to which the spouses belong (Putnam 2007). The previous literature has suggested that there is an intermarriage gain (or 'premium') effect, whereby the migrant spouse benefits from being married to a nonmigrant of the country of settlement (reflected by, e.g., employment indicators (Furtado and Song 2015) and upward social mobility (Chang 2016)). We extend this research on the role of intermarriage in migrant integration by including in the analysis the dimension of mental health.…”