Patterns of immigrant intermarriage in France: Intergenerational marital assimilation?

Abstract

This article provides insight into immigrant intermarriage in France. It describes trends of immigrant marital behaviour between 1976 and 2000, compares intermarriage rates amongst different immigrant groups and pays particular attention to changes in marital behaviour across immigrant generations. The statistical analyses take into account individual factors and contextual effects such as the sex-ratios and sizes of the groups in question. Based on data from the Échantillon démographique permanent (Permanent Demographic Sample, EDP) of the Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques (INSEE), findings point to a stable trend of marital behaviour among immigrant men and women over time, sharp differences in intermarriage rates among groups, and a significant change in the marital behaviour of secondgeneration immigrants, who intermarry much more often than their parents regardless of their origin.
 Zusammenfassung
 Dieser Beitrag gibt Einblick in interethnische Eheschließungen in Frankreich. Es werden Trends des Heiratsverhaltens von Immigrant(inn)en in den Jahren 1976 und 2000 in Frankreich beschrieben, interethnische Eheschließungsraten bei verschiedenen Immigrantengruppen miteinander verglichen, wobei ein besonderes Augenmerk auf Veränderungen im Heiratsverhalten über die Einwanderergenerationen hinweg gerichtet wird. Bei den statistischen Analysen werden sowohl individuelle Faktoren als auch Kontexteffekte, wie z.B. das Geschlechterverhältnis und die Gruppengröße der betreffenden Gruppen, einbezogen. Auf Basis der Daten des Échantillon démographique permanent (demographische Dauerstichprobe) des Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques (INSEE) deuten die Ergebnisse darauf hin, dass es einen über die Zeit stabilen Trend beim Heiratsverhalten von Männern und Frauen mit Migrationshintergrund, sehr deutliche Unterschiede in den interethnischen Eheschließungsraten zwischen den Einwanderergruppen sowie signifikante Veränderungen im Heiratsverhalten der zweiten Generation der Einwanderer gibt. Letztere gehen – unabhängig von ihrer Herkunft – sehr viel häufiger interethnische Ehen als noch ihre Eltern ein.

The Intermarriage Life Satisfaction Premium

“…High SWB immigrants, with a greater self-perceived attachment to the native mainstream, could not only be more willing to choose a native partner, but due to better integration, they would also be more likely to be chosen by natives themselves. In most Western European countries, migrants belonging to the first generation are less prone to marry natives (González-Ferrer 2005;Hannemann et al 2018;Safi 2010a). This means that those who do enter exogamous unions with natives are likely a more select group, for whom a high SWB, which could make up for lower mate value (e.g., greater cultural distance from native mainstream), may be already noticed prior to union formation.…”

From Intermarriage to Conjugal Mixedness

“…On the one hand, not all couples are married, and besides, it is hardly sufficient to hint at the fact that all the factors of differentiation defining them intersect simply by using the prefix inter, as weak and imprecise as the prefix bi. The term "intermarriage" has been used mainly in statistical work (Kalmijn 1998;Waters 2000;Safi 2010) and indicates the copresence of two national cultures from which the varying degrees of integration the ethno-cultural groups under study are supposedly capable of achieving are deduced, as Miri Song also points out (Song 2009). I am precisely aiming to go one step further, by postulating that what is at stake is not only the encounter between two traditions or two cultural entities, but conjugal choices reflecting social relations that pool features bearing the stamp of inequality between the two spouses because traditions or cultures in contact are never on the same level.…”

The Effect of the Family Type and Home Literacy Environment on the Development of Literacy Skills by Bi-/Multilingual Children in Cyprus

“…According to Feng et al (2012), intermarriage between foreign and native individuals can indicate a general acceptance of immigrants by the majority population and successful integration due to close historical, cultural (religion and religiosity), economic and social links, especially between the neighboring countries (Carol 2013; Dribe and Lundh 2008;Furtado 2012;Kulu and González-Ferrer 2014;Milewski and Kulu 2014). On the individual level, age, physical attraction, human capital, level of education, socioeconomic position, individuals' income, wealth or occupation, and shared cultural values are the decisive factors for the choice of marital partner (Dribe and Lundh 2011), especially in the case of exogamy among immigrants (Kalmijn and Tubergen 2006;Safi 2010;Van Tubergen and Maas 2007). According to Merton's status exchange theory, the phenomenon of intermarriage can be explained as an exchange of human, social and economic assets between the partners (Behtoui 2010;Gullickson 2006;Hannemann et al 2018;Meng and Gregory 2005;Merton 1941;Qian and Lichter 2007;Rosenfeld 2010).…”