IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/luekhi/0147.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Opposites Attract – Evidence of Status Exchange in Ethnic Intermarriages in Sweden

Author

Listed:
  • Elwert, Annika

    (Department of Economic History, Lund University)

Abstract

This study raises the question of how marriage market relevant status characteristics are distributed among partners in exogamous relationships. The status exchange hypothesis posits that partners in racially and ethnically heterogamous relationships trade status characteristics, mainly education. We address this hypothesis focusing on intermarriages between immigrants and native men (N=606,257) and women (N=600,165) in Sweden using register data covering the entire Swedish population for the period 1990 to 2009. Results from binomial and multinomial logistic regressions show that low status in terms of age, income, and previous relationships are determinants for exogamy, and that the main marriage market relevant status that is exchanged is age, not education. This holds particularly for immigrants from certain countries of origin such as for wives from Asia and Africa and husbands from Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Swedish men and women show surprisingly large symmetry in status exchange patterns

Suggested Citation

  • Elwert, Annika, 2016. "Opposites Attract – Evidence of Status Exchange in Ethnic Intermarriages in Sweden," Lund Papers in Economic History 147, Lund University, Department of Economic History.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:luekhi:0147
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/publication/c09fbce5-92b1-4e7d-9dc2-63bef6c17c9a
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christine Schwartz & Robert Mare, 2005. "Trends in educational assortative marriage from 1940 to 2003," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 42(4), pages 621-646, November.
    2. Barry Chiswick & Christina Houseworth, 2011. "Ethnic intermarriage among immigrants: human capital and assortative mating," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 9(2), pages 149-180, June.
    3. Aaron Gullickson & Florencia Torche, 2014. "Patterns of Racial and Educational Assortative Mating in Brazil," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(3), pages 835-856, June.
    4. Matthijs Kalmijn & Frank Tubergen, 2010. "A comparative perspective on intermarriage: Explaining differences among national-origin groups in the United States," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 47(2), pages 459-479, May.
    5. Delia Furtado, 2012. "Human Capital And Interethnic Marriage Decisions," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 50(1), pages 82-93, January.
    6. Matthijs Kalmijn & Frank Tubergen, 2006. "Ethnic intermarriage in the Netherlands: confirmations and refutations of accepted insights," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 22(4), pages 371-397, December.
    7. David Glowsky, 2007. "Why Do German Men Marry Women from Less Developed Countries?: An Analysis of Transnational Partner Search Based on the German Socio-Economic Panel," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 61, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    8. Zhenchao Qian, 1997. "Breaking the racial barriers: Variations in interracial marriage between 1980 and 1990," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 34(2), pages 263-276, May.
    9. André Grow & Jan Van Bavel, 2015. "Assortative Mating and the Reversal of Gender Inequality in Education in Europe: An Agent-Based Model," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(6), pages 1-24, June.
    10. Östh, John & van Ham, Maarten & Niedomysl, Thomas, 2010. "The geographies of recruiting a partner from abroad. An exploration of Swedish data," Arbetsrapport 2009:21, Institute for Futures Studies.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Annika Elwert, 2020. "Opposites Attract: Assortative Mating and Immigrant–Native Intermarriage in Contemporary Sweden," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 36(4), pages 675-709, September.
    2. Allan Puur & Leen Rahnu & Luule Sakkeus & Martin Klesment & Liili Abuladze, 2018. "The formation of ethnically mixed partnerships in Estonia: A stalling trend from a two-sided perspective," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 38(38), pages 1111-1154.
    3. Delia Furtado & Stephen J. Trejo, 2013. "Interethnic marriages and their economic effects," Chapters, in: Amelie F. Constant & Klaus F. Zimmermann (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Migration, chapter 15, pages 276-292, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Ray, Tridip & Roy Chaudhuri, Arka & Sahai, Komal, 2020. "Whose education matters? An analysis of inter caste marriages in India," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 619-633.
    5. Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay & Elliott Green, 2018. "Explaining inter-ethnic and inter-religious marriage in Sub-Saharan Africa," Working Papers 90, Queen Mary, University of London, School of Business and Management, Centre for Globalisation Research.
    6. Amparo González-Ferrer & Ognjen Obućina & Clara Cortina & Teresa Castro Martín, 2018. "Mixed marriages between immigrants and natives in Spain: The gendered effect of marriage market constraints," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 39(1), pages 1-32.
    7. Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay & Elliott Green, 2021. "Explaining inter‐ethnic marriage in Sub‐Saharan Africa," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(4), pages 627-643, May.
    8. Davide Azzolini & Raffaele Guetto, 2014. "Mixed-Nativity Marriages: a Marker of Immigrants' Integration or Marginality in the Host Countries? Evidence from Italy," FBK-IRVAPP Working Papers 2014-03, Research Institute for the Evaluation of Public Policies (IRVAPP), Bruno Kessler Foundation.
    9. Christina Houseworth & Jonathan Fisher, 2024. "Not so Black and White: Interracial marriage and wages," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 62(2), pages 633-649, April.
    10. Nekby, Lena, 2010. "Inter- and Intra-Marriage Premiums Revisited: It’s probably who you are, not who you marry!," SULCIS Working Papers 2010:12, Stockholm University, Linnaeus Center for Integration Studies - SULCIS.
    11. Aycan Çelikaksoy, 2014. "Parental Background and Union Formation Behavior of Native Born Individuals in Sweden with a Foreign Background," Societies, MDPI, vol. 4(3), pages 1-12, June.
    12. Chunbei Wang & Le Wang, 2012. "The effects of 9/11 on intermarriage between natives and immigrants to the U.S," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 171-192, June.
    13. Amuedo-Dorantes, Catalina & Arenas-Arroyo, Esther & Wang, Chunbei, 2020. "Is immigration enforcement shaping immigrant marriage patterns?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    14. Ho-Po Crystal Wong, 2014. "The Effects of Endogamous Marriage on Family Outcomes: Evidence from Exogenous Variation in Immigrant Flows During 1900-1930 in the United States," Working Papers 14-31, Department of Economics, West Virginia University.
    15. Ognjen Obućina, 2016. "Partner Choice in Sweden Following a Failed Intermarriage," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 32(4), pages 511-542, October.
    16. Santana, Emilce, 2019. "POP award 2019 submissions," OSF Preprints ug3vb, Center for Open Science.
    17. Delia Furtado & Nikolaos Theodoropoulos, 2011. "Interethnic marriage: a choice between ethnic and educational similarities," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 24(4), pages 1257-1279, October.
    18. Eva Dziadula, 2022. "Match quality and divorce among naturalized U.S. citizens," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 89(1), pages 37-61, July.
    19. Doreen Huschek & Helga A. G. Valk & Aart C. Liefbroer, 2012. "Partner Choice Patterns Among the Descendants of Turkish Immigrants in Europe [Schémas de choix du partenaire chez les descendants des immigrants Turcs en Europe]," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 28(3), pages 241-268, August.
    20. Cynthia Bansak & Sarah Pearlman, 2022. "Marriage and immigration enforcement: The impact of Secure Communities on immigrant women," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(1), pages 351-372, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Interethnic marriage; Immigration/Migrant families; Ethnicity; Western European families;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hhs:luekhi:0147. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Tobias Karlsson or Benny Carlsson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dhlunse.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.