Barriers to Marital Assimilation: Hispanic Intermarriage in U.S. Cities

J. Brian Brown, Ohio State University

Hispanic immigrants face barriers to integration into U.S. society due to their low socioeconomic status as well as continuous flows of Hispanic immigration into this country. We combine the newly released 5% public use microdata from the 2000 census with the 1990 5% public use microdata to evaluate the hypothesis that marital assimilation of Hispanic immigrants is a function of preexisting patterns of social, residential, and economic assimilation at the metropolitan level. Specifically, we: (1) examine patterns of intermarriage between foreign-born Hispanics and native-born Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites between 1990 and 2000, (2), identify barriers to Hispanic intermarriage in major U.S. metropolitan areas, and (3) reveal how these barriers and patterns have changed between 1990 and 2000. Our research provides insights into patterns of intermarriage among non-native Hispanics and identifies various marriage market opportunities and constraints that affect the pace of Hispanic marital assimilation.