Finding love abroad: who marries a migrant and what do they gain?

Abstract

This study explores the role of individual and local marriage market characteristics in whether recently wed U.S. residents “imported” a spouse instead of marrying someone already present in the country. Our findings indicate that U.S. natives and immigrants whose spouse is a “marriage migrant” (someone who arrived in the U.S. the same year as the marriage occurred) are positively selected along some dimensions but negatively along others. The results also suggest that U.S. immigration policy plays an important role in whether immigrants bring in a spouse. We further investigate the trade-offs in spouse characteristics associated with having a marriage-migrant spouse. Marriage-migrant spouses are more likely than other spouses to have characteristics that their spouse may find desirable, such as being relatively younger and less likely to have been previously married. Among naturalized citizens, differences in spousal characteristics between marriage migrants and other spouses are notably large, showcasing the desirability of someone who can easily sponsor a spouse for permanent residence.