Intermarriage and the labour-force participation of immigrants: differences by gender

Studies of the impact of intermarriage on labour market outcomes of immigrants focus on labour-force participants. However, intermarriage itself can change participation options and heterogeneously so for men and women. Using data from the 2010 American Community Survey, we find that the raw impact of intermarriage is to reduce labour-force participation for men and increase it for women. However, upon controlling for observable and unobservable selection into intermarriage, the gains from intermarriage for women are reversed. The importance of human capital controls of education and experience in determining the labour-force participation of married immigrants is underscored. Birthplace fixed effects play an important role in explaining the gender differences in labour-force participation among intermarried immigrants.