Do immigrants pay a price when marrying natives? Lessons from the US time use survey

Shoshana Amyra Grossbard,Victoria Vernon

doi:10.2478/izajodm-2020-0016

Shoshana Amyra Grossbard, Victoria Vernon

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.2478/izajodm-2020-0016

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Abstract

Abstract We compare the allocation of time of native men and women married to immigrants against their counterparts in all-native couples using the American Time Use Survey for the years 2003–18. We find that when intermarried to a native man, immigrant women pay an assimilation price to the extent that, compared to native women in all-native marriages, they work longer hours at paid work, household chores, or both, while their husbands do no extra work. In some cases, they work for just an extra hour per day. Immigrant men do not pay such a price. Some work 34 min less at household chores than native men in all-native marriages, while the native women who marry immigrant men seem to pay a price related to their situation that would be in an all-native marriage. An explanation based on the operation of competitive marriage markets works for immigrant women, but not for immigrant men. Traditionally, gender-based privileges may allow immigrant men to prevent native women from getting a price for the value that intermarriage generates for their husbands. Such a “male dominance” scenario also helps explain why immigrant men married to native daughters of immigrants from the same region get more benefits from intermarriage than other immigrants.

Highlights

Intermarriage is common in the USA: Around 7% of married couples in the US, or over 4 million households, consist of a native and a foreign-born spouse. 1 In this paper we examine intermarriage gaps in individual time devoted to household production work and work in the labor force as a function of whether natives are intermarried or not.Marriage is one of the channels by which immigrants assimilate
We find that when intermarried to a native some immigrant women pay an assimilation price in one or more of the following ways: compared to their counterparts in all-native marriages they have a higher total workload, they do more chores, or they benefit from fewer hours of chores performed by their native spouse
In this paper our goal has been to assess whether there are gaps in the time use of individual men and women that are associated with intermarriage between natives (U.S born respondents) and immigrants

Summary

DISCUSSION PAPER SERIES

Do Immigrants Pay a Price When Marrying Natives? Lessons from the US Time Use Survey. Any opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published in this series may include views on policy, but IZA takes no institutional policy positions. The IZA research network is committed to the IZA Guiding Principles of Research Integrity. Supported by the Deutsche Post Foundation, IZA runs the world’s largest network of economists, whose research aims to provide answers to the global labor market challenges of our time. IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author

Introduction

Findings

Conclusions

By second generation status