The transition to first marriage and partner choice of migrant and majority populations in Scandinavia

Kenneth Aarskaug Wiik, Statistics Norway
Jennifer A. Holland, University of Southampton and Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI)

Using high-quality administrative register data, we study the marriage behavior of all migrant- and non-migrant-background individuals born between 1972 and 1989, who grew up in Sweden and Norway. Patterns of endogamy and exogamy, as well as the relative timing of union formation may be informative as to the socio-cultural distance between majority and migrant-background subpopulations. We begin by analyzing differential hazards of marriage by migrant generation and (parental) region of origin. We then demonstrate how the hazard of marriage varies by the endogamy or exogamy status of the union in a competing risk framework (multinomial logistic regression). Results will provide deeper insight into the family dynamics of migrants and their descendants, across countries with similar family formation regimes but different histories of migration. Moreover, we demonstrate the unique position of the second generation with respect to union formation behaviors relative migrants arriving as children and majority populations across these contexts.