Immigration and Status Exchange in Australia and the United States

Kate H. Choi (), Marta Tienda, Deborah Cobb-Clark and Mathias Sinning ()

ANU Working Papers in Economics and Econometrics from Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics

Abstract: The claim that marriage is a venue for status exchange of achieved traits, like education, and ascribed attributes, notably race and ethnic membership, has regained traction in the social stratification literature. Most studies that consider status exchanges ignore birthplace as a social boundary for status exchanges via couple formation. This paper evaluates the status exchange hypothesis for Australia and the United States, two Anglophone nations with long immigration traditions whose admission regimes place different emphases on skills. A log-linear analysis reveals evidence of status exchange in the United States among immigrants with lower levels of education and mixed nativity couples with foreign-born husbands. Partly because Australian educational boundaries are less sharply demarcated at the postsecondary level, we find is weaker evidence for the status exchange hypothesis. Australian status exchanges across nativity boundaries usually involve marriages between immigrant spouses with a postsecondary credential below a college degree and native-born high school graduates.

JEL-codes: F22 I24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 Pages
Date: 2011-06
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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https://www.cbe.anu.edu.au/researchpapers/econ/wp545.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Immigration and Status Exchange in Australia and the United States (2011)
Working Paper: Immigration and Status Exchange in Australia and the United States (2011)
Working Paper: Immigration and Status Exchange in Australia and the United States (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:acb:cbeeco:2011-545

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