Generation, education, and intermarriage of Asian Americans

ABSTRACT

The influx of immigrants from Asia to the United States (U.S.) has expanded the pool of co-ethnic marriageable partners, strengthened racial identity, and contributed to the decline in interracial marriage with whites among Asian Americans. Yet, retreat from interracial marriage with whites may well vary by immigrant generation, an important factor in marital assimilation. Using data from the March Current Population Survey (1994–2015), we examine generational differences in intergenerational marriage and interracial marriage with whites among Asian Americans. The results reveal that over time third-plus-generation Asians show no significant change in interracial marriage with whites but declines in intergenerational marriage with first- or second-generation Asians. Second-generation Asians, on the other hand, have become more likely to marry first-generation Asians and less likely to marry whites. In addition, education provides different opportunities for intermarriage, with highly-educated Asian Americans more likely than their less-educated counterparts to marry whites and less likely to marry other Asians. Notably, highly-educated second-generation Asians tend to marry third-plus-generation Asians and whites while their less-educated counterparts marry first-generation Asians. These findings highlight the importance of generation and education in integration of Asian Americans.

Acknowledgement

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Conference of Migration and Marriage in Asia, July 26–27, 2016.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The IPUMS-CPS classifies the time when an immigrant came to the U.S. into several year intervals. We take the median value of each interval and estimate age at immigration based on age, survey year, and median year at arrival.

Additional information

Funding

The authors acknowledge centre grant support from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NIH) to Brown University (P2C HD041020).