Interethnic Marriage: A Choice between Ethnic and Educational Similarities

33 Pages Posted: 23 May 2008

See all articles by Delia Furtado

Delia Furtado

University of Connecticut - Department of Economics; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Nikolaos Theodoropoulos

University of Cyprus

Abstract

This paper examines the effects of education on intermarriage, and specifically whether the mechanisms through which education affects intermarriage differ by immigrant generation, age at arrival, and race. We consider three main paths through which education affects marriage choice. First, educated people may be better able to adapt to different cultures making them more likely to marry outside of their ethnicity (cultural adaptability effect). Second, because the educated are less likely to reside in ethnic enclaves, meeting potential spouses of the same ethnicity may be difficult (enclave effect). Lastly, if spouse-searchers value similarities in education as well as similarities in ethnicity, then the effect of education will depend on the availability of same-ethnicity potential spouses with a similar level of education (assortative matching effect). Using data from the 2000 U.S. Census, we find that controlling for the enclave effect, there is empirical evidence for both the cultural adaptability and assortative matching effects. Our estimates also suggest that assortative matching is relatively more important for the native born rather than the foreign born, for the foreign born that arrived young rather than old, and for Asians rather than Hispanics. We provide additional evidence suggestive of our hypotheses and discuss policy implications.

Keywords: ethnic intermarriage, education, immigration

JEL Classification: J12, I21, J61

Suggested Citation

Furtado, Delia and Theodoropoulos, Nikolaos, Interethnic Marriage: A Choice between Ethnic and Educational Similarities. IZA Working Paper No. 3448, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1136253 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1136253

Delia Furtado (Contact Author)

University of Connecticut - Department of Economics ( email )

365 Fairfield Way, U-1063
Storrs, CT 06269-1063
United States

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Nikolaos Theodoropoulos

University of Cyprus ( email )

CY-1678 Nicosia
Nicosia, Nicosia P.O. Box 2
Cyprus

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