Entry and Stability of Cross-National Marriages in the United States

As more and more people move across borders, marriage is becoming an increasingly global affair. Yet cross-national marriage (CNM) migration has not received the scholarly attention it deserves. The present study examines the characteristics and marital stability of unions between U.S. nationals and their foreign-born (FB) spouses residing in the United States. Two data sources were used in the analysis-the American Community Survey (ACS) and the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). Our results indicated that, after controlling for race/ethnicity, socioeconomic background and marital history, marriages between U.S. nationals and their FB spouses who entered the United States as adults were less stable than unions between two native-born (NB) spouses. Compared with non-Hispanic Whites, Asian and Hispanic U.S. nationals were more prone to marry FB spouses. We also found that husband NB-wife FB marriages seemed to fare better than wife NB-husband FB types.