Gender Asymmetries in Cross-National Marriage in High-Income Countries

Albert Esteve , Center for Demographic Studies (Barcelona)
Annika Elwert, Lund University
Ewa Batyra , Center for Demographic Studies (CED) and Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR)

The weakening of gender asymmetries in union formation in high-income countries coincided with a growth of marriages between natives and foreigners. We use IPUMS censuses for Spain, United States, and Canada where educational hypergamy and spousal age gaps have been disappearing and a large share of the population intermarry. We examine gender differences in characteristics of natives and their immigrant spouses according to age, education, and countries’ development. Preliminary results show that cross-national marriages in these countries exhibit striking gender asymmetries, whereby native men disproportionally marry women from particular origins but not vice-versa. Namely, native men partner with individuals from countries with a lower level of development to a greater extent than native women, who in turn choose spouses from countries at a similar or higher development level. We speculate that these gendered patterns in cross-national marriages reflect the persistence of preferences towards traditional marriage arrangements among natives in high-income countries.

See extended abstract

 Presented in Session 43. Homogamy and intermarriage