This paper examines the relationship between interethnic marriages and economic assimilation among immigrants in the United States. Two competing hypotheses are evaluated: the productivity hypothesis, according to which immigrants married to native-born spouses assimilate faster than comparable...

Lack of economic assimilation of immigrants often results in social and political unrest of a society. The increased desire to understand better the nature of the assimilation process of immigrants is due to increased immigration flows in many western countries. In this paper we try to study the...

This paper investigates the effect of a native spouse on the transitions into and out of entrepreneurship of male immigrants in the U.S. We find that those married to a native are less likely to start up a business compared to those married to an immigrant. This finding is robust when the...

Previous studies show that immigrants married to natives earn higher wages than immigrants married to other immigrants. Using data from the 1980-2000 U.S. censuses and the 2005-2010 American Community Surveys, we show that these wage premiums have increased over time. Our evidence suggests that...

For immigrants, intermarriage with natives is assumed to have an assimilating role due to the enhancement of local human capital such a union creates in the form of improved knowledge about host country institutions, language and customs as well as access to native spouses' networks and...

Marriage to a native has a theoretically ambiguous impact on immigrant employment rates. Utilizing 2000 U.S. Census data, this paper empirically tests whether and how marriage choice affects the probability that an immigrant is employed. Results from an ordinary least squares model controlling...

High unemployment in many OECD countries is often attributed, at least in part, to the generosity and long duration of unemployment compensation. It is therefore instructive to examine a country where high unemployment exists despite the near complete absence of an unemployment insurance system....

This paper examines the effect of one partner’s overseas migration on the other non-migrant partner’s labor force participation and supply behavior. I compare the effect when the migrant partner is male and when she is female. The study uses merged 2003 data sets from the nationally...

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,...

A common perception about immigrant assimilation is that association with natives necessarily speeds the process by which immigrants become indistinguishable from natives. Using 2000 Census data, this paper casts doubt on this presumption by examining the effect of an immigrant's marriage to a...