Assimilation or Upward Mobility? The Intermarriage Patterns among Asian Immigrants

Chiung-fang Chang, Texas A&M University
Carol S. Walther, Texas A&M University

Most couples marry within their own religious preference, race, and ethnicity, educational attainment, and socioeconomic status. According to the 2000 Census, only two percent of marriages are the result of exogamous marriages, that is, individuals who have married a person of another race or ethnicity. Although Asian population is one of the smallest ethnicities in the United States, approximately 3 percent when compared to 12 percent of Hispanics and African Americans, the Asian population is also one of the fastest growing populations, with many East and West coast cities dominated by the Asian population. In this paper, we examine four major patterns of intermarriage among Asian immigrants by using data from the most recent 2000 American Community Survey. We focus on four interethnic-marriage patterns: 1) Asians out-married to Hispanic/non-Hispanic Whites; 2) Asians out-married to Hispanic/non-Hispanic non-Whites; 3) Asians out-married to other Asian group members; and 4) Asians in-married to their own group members. Although previous studies have suggested that Asian immigrants have a greater tendency to out-marry to whites rather than out-marry to other racial/ethnic groups, few empirical works have been done to examine the intention of "upward mobility" for Asian immigrants’ intermarriage behaviors. Focusing on Milton Gordon's assimilation perspective and Alejandro Portes' "segmented assimilation" theory, this paper asks the following research questions: First, how does marital assimilation differ among this four types of intermarriage patterns? Second, does the segmented assimilation theory work for interracial and interethnic marriages for Asian immigrants? And third, how does the intention of 'upward mobility' account for Asian immigrants' intermarriages? We apply confirmatory factor analysis and logistic regression models to answer these questions by comparing four different marriage patterns. Because Milton Gordon's assimilation and Alejandro Portes' segmented assimilation suggest avenues for interethnic marriages, we first examine the assimilation perspective. Gordon's assimilation perspective suggests that marital assimilation is the final stage of assimilation. Focusing on European immigrants, Gordon argued that cultural assimilation included language acquisition and citizenship status. Furthermore becoming part of the host societies institutions, such as schools and the military are all indicators of structural assimilation. Once cultural and structural assimilation has occurred, marital assimilation, Gordon suggests, follows directly. However, research on Hispanics and Asians suggests that the assimilation perspective does not completely explain interethnic marriage patterns among these populations. Portes' argued that assimilation does not necessarily lead to economic progress and social acceptance for immigrants. He observed three possible patterns of segmented assimilation that immigrants become "incorporated into the system of stratification in the host society and the different outcomes of this process (1993: 975)." First, second generation immigrants can become acculturated and blend into the white middle class (upward mobility). Secondly, second generation immigrants can move toward the opposite direction, leading to permanent poverty and assimilation into the underclass (downward mobility). Or third, second generation immigrants can deliberately retain the immigrant community’s values and tight solidarity. These three patterns denote various mobility patterns for Asian immigrants. To better examine the various effects of assimilation and upward mobility across four groups of interethnic marriages, we first provide a descriptive analysis by using a simple ANOVA test to examine the 'upward mobility' differences among four intermarriage patterns. Five predictors were used to measure the index of 'upward mobility', they are-- difference in income, difference in educational attainment, difference in year of entry, difference in language acquisition, and difference in military participation, between Asians and their spouses. The factor loadings of above 5 predictors from the confirmatory factor analysis well measure the latent construct of 'upward mobility.' We next examine predictors of individual assimilation and upward mobility by comparing four logistic regression models. Preliminary results show clearly that there are significant differences in their values of upward mobility among these four patterns of intermarriage. Asians who out-marry to Hispanic/non-Hispanic whites have significantly greater value in mobility compared with the value of Asian endogamous group; Asians who out-marry to Hispanic/non-Hispanic non-whites have slightly lower value in mobility compared with that of the Asian endogamous group; and Asians who out-marry to other Asian ethnicities also have higher value in mobility compared with that of the Asian endogamous group. In addition, Asian women are more likely to have 'upward mobility' interethnic marriages than Asian men. The comparison of upward mobility among these interethnic marriages couples is very interesting. For those Asian men and women who have higher socioeconomic status, our preliminary results demonstrate that they have a greater tendency and better chance to out-marry whites, and also they have relatively higher values for the upward mobility index. This pattern well indicates the status of "honorable whites" among the majority of Asian immigrants, and supports Portes’ upward assimilation pattern. For those Asian men and women who out-marry to non-whites, Asian men and women occupy lower socioeconomic status and their downward assimilation, suggesting that the assimilation factors provide better explanations on their interethnic marriages. Many of them assimilate toward to the "collective blacks" path in the bottom of hierarchy. And for some Asians who want to keep their own community identity will then choose to marry up to other model Asians or marry to their own Asian group members in order to keep their own pan-ethnicity, which accounts almost totally for the upward mobility reason on their marriage behaviors. In the logistic regression analysis, we account for an individual’s citizenship status, language acquisition, time of arrival in the United States, and military involvement to model the assimilation effect. Controlling for individual demographic characteristics (e.g. age and gender), effects of assimilation and upward mobility will be examined in four different logistic models. Our preliminary results support Portes' theory of segmented assimilation. It is our belief that the further analysis will decompose the variance components of individual assimilation and upward mobility predictors and provide a complete support of our hypotheses.