Boundary crossing in first marriage and remarriage

Abstract

Owing to secular increases in divorce rates, remarriage has become a prevalent feature of American family life; yet, research about mate selection behavior in higher order marriages remains limited. Using log-linear methods to recent data from the 2008–2014 American Community Survey, we compare racial and ethnic sorting behavior in first and subsequent marriages. The two most frequently crossed boundaries – those involving White-Asian and White-Hispanic couples – are more permeable in remarriages than in first marriages. Boundaries that are crossed with less frequency – those between minority groups and the White-Black boundary-are less permeable in remarriages than in first marriages. Collectively, these findings suggest that racial and ethnic sorting processes in remarriage may reify existing social distances between pan-ethnic groups. Racial and ethnic variations in how the relative permeability of boundary changes between first and higher-order marriages underscore the importance of considering a broad array of interracial pairings when assessing the ways in which changes in family structure and marital sorting behavior promote integration.

Mixed marriages in Switzerland: A test of the segmented assimilation hypothesis

“…Mixed unions, particularly mixed marriages, defined as marital unions between individuals of different ethno-racial ancestry, have been subject to extensive empirical research in the United States (e.g., Choi and Tienda 2017;Fu 2001;Qian and Lichter 2011). As intermarriage scholars often point out, the prevalence and determinants of mixed marriages serve as indicators of the persistence of group boundaries and of the social and cultural distance between ethnic/racial groups (Fu 2001;Kalmijn and van Tubergen 2010;Lucassen and Laarman 2009).…”

Educational and age assortative mating in China: The importance of marriage order

“…The rapid and sizable increase in the number of remarriages has become a key feature of family and demographic changes in contemporary China (Raymo et al 2015;Wang and Zhou 2010). However, little is known about assortative mating patterns in remarriage or how the patterns may differ from those observed in first marriage, apart from a few recent studies that focus on Western contexts (Choi and Tienda 2017;Gelissen 2004;Qian and Lichter 2018;Shafer 2013aShafer , 2013b. As a result, a number of important questions are left unanswered.…”

“…With the rise of remarriage in China (cf. Figure 1; Wang and Zhou 2010), more people may remarry across educational boundaries, which may help reduce the social distance between educational groups and mitigate economic inequality arising from educational assortative mating (Choi and Tienda 2017;Hu and Qian 2015).…”

“…Assortative mating, the question of 'who marries whom,' has important implications for the production and reproduction of social inequality (Schwartz 2013). Despite the decline of first marriage and the rise of remarriage in many countries (Cherlin 2004;Raymo et al 2015;Sweeney 2010;Wang and Zhou 2010), scholarly efforts examining how assortative mating patterns differ between first marriages and remarriages remain limited, apart from a few recent exceptions that focus on Western societies (Choi and Tienda 2017;Gelissen 2004;Qian and Lichter 2018;Shafer 2013aShafer , 2013b. It is widely believed that patterns of assortative mating are conditional on the extent to which (re)marriage is institutionalized and stigmatized (Cherlin 2004;Kalmijn 1998;Qian and Lichter 2018;Qian and Qian 2017;Schwartz 2013).…”

Governance of Cross-Border Migration in Asia

“…There is, however, the extensive literature on the subject of marriage migration (Choi & Tienda, 2017;Sun, 2017). There are a few recurring themes in response to the complexity of such a process: the global flow of capital, governmentality, the role of women, the power geometry, cultural identity and diaspora.…”