Mixed marriages among immigrants and their descendants in the United Kingdom: analysis of longitudinal data with missing information

This study investigates formation of endogamous and exogamous marriages among immigrants and their descendants in the UK. While there is a growing literature on various aspects of ethnic minorities’ lives in Britain, their marriage patterns have been little studied and understood. We apply event-history analysis to data from the Understanding Society study and use multiple imputation to determine the type of marriage for individuals with missing information on the origin of their spouse. The analysis shows, first, significant differences among immigrants and their descendants in the likelihood of marrying within and outside of their ethnic groups. While immigrants from European countries have relatively high exogamous marriage rates, South Asians exhibit a high likelihood of marrying a partner from their own ethnic group; Caribbeans hold an intermediate position. Second, the descendants of immigrants have lower endogamous and higher exogamous marriage rates than their parents; however, for some ethnic groups, particularly for South Asians the differences across generations are small. Third, the exogamy rates are high among ethnic minority women and men with better English skills, individuals who are less religious and those who are older at first marriage. Fourth, highly-educated native British men have an elevated likelihood of forming an inter-ethnic marriage; exogamous marriages are also formed at later ages among the native men and women.