Patterns of Intermarriage and Cross-generational In-marriage Among Native-born Asian Americans

June 19, 2017March 12, 2010 By Pyong Gap Min and Chigon Kim

This article examines patterns of post-1965 native-born Asian Americans’ intermarriages and cross-generational in-marriages using a combined sample of the 2001-2006 American Community Surveys from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series. The analysis focuses on ethnic and gender differences in intermarriage and cross-generational in-marriage rates and patterns. About 55% of native-born Asian Americans are found to be intermarried while another 23% are married to 1.5-generation or first-generation co-ethnic immigrants. Thus only 22% of native-born Asian Americans are married to co-ethnic native-born Asian Americans. As expected, there are significant ethnic and gender differences in intermarriage and cross-generational in-marriage rates and patterns.

This study is significant because it is the first study that has examined intermarriage patterns among post-1965 native-born Asian Americans, the majority of whom are likely to be children of post-1965 Asian immigrants, using the most recent census data available. It is also significant for studies of the new second generation in general in that it is the first study to show patterns of cross-generational in-marriage among members of the new second generation.

Online Notes

Author Bio

Pyong Gap Min

Pyong Gap Min is the Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Queens College and CUNY Graduate Center. He also serves as Director of the Research Center for Korean Community at Queens College. Dr. Min's areas of interest include immigration, ethnic identity, ethnic business, immigrants’ religious practices, and family/gender, with a special focus on Asian/Korean Americans. He is the author of six books, five of them focusing on Korean immigrants’ experiences. They include Caught in the Middle: Korean Communities in New York and Los Angeles (1996), the winner of two national book awards, and Preserving Ethnicity through Religion in America: Korean Protestants and Indian Hindus across Generations (2010), the winner of three national book awards, one in Korea and the other two in the United States. His last book is Korean Comfort Women: Military Brothel, Brutality, and the Redress Movement published just this year.

Dr. Min's fourteen edited and co-edited books include Encyclopedia of Racism in the United States, 3 volumes (2005) and Asian Americans: Contemporary Trends and Issues, the Second Edition (2006). He was a Russell Sage Foundation fellow in 2006-2007, for writing his 2008 book, Ethnic Solidarity for Economic Survival: Korean Greengrocers in New York City. He received the Distinguished Career Award from the International Migration Section of the American Sociological Association in 2012 and the Contribution to the Field Award from the Section on Asia and Asian America of the American Sociological Association in 2019.

Chigon Kim

Chigon Kim is an assistant professor in the Sociology/Anthropology department at Wright State University. He also teaches in the Applied Behavioral Science program. Dr. Kim earned his Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo and his M.A. from Hanyang University in Seoul Korea. He specializes in social research methods and data analysis. Dr. Kim's research interests include gender and racial inequalities in urban labor markets, globalization, and minority communities.