Marital Timing and Marital Assimilation Variation and Change among European Americans between 1910 and 1980

Abstract

Most studies of the intersection of marriage and ethnic assimilation focus on partner choice rather than marital timing as an indicator of immigrant adaptation. Yet whether or when immigrant groups assumed an “American” marriage pattern can shed light on the nature of immigrant adaptation, its pace, and completeness. The authors examine ethnic differences for European Americans in the marriage timing of select birth cohorts from 1850 through 1950, using data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) for 1910 and 1980. Event-history analysis is used to predict timing of marriage by birth cohort, ethnicity, and nativity. The results indicate much greater ethnic dispersion in marriage timing among the cohorts born between 1851 and 1880 than for those born between 1921 and 1950, for both women and men. The sharp decline in ethnic variation in marriage timing suggests that with increasing duration in the United States a particularly American pattern of marriage evolved. Nonetheless, despite considerable compression among European ethnics in the timing of marriage, as of 1980 ethnicity continued to distinguish age at marriage.