Marrying out and Beyond: Explaining National and Immigrant Boundaries among Latin American Immigrants in Canada

• In Event: 135 - Section on Sociology of Population Paper Session. Race/Ethnicity and Population Dynamics

Abstract

Immigration to Canada has increased markedly over the past twenty years, with an accompanying diversification in the origins of the foreign-born population. Using the 2006 Census of Canada we study exogamy among the growing Latin American immigrant population in Canada, examining their unions with co-nationals, non-conational foreign-born, and non-conational Canadian-born. The analysis evaluates the contribution of social exchange theory, demographic accounts, and theories of immigrant integration to understanding the partnering practices of immigrants from Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico. Evidence from multinomial logit regressions shows that differences in exogamy between immigrants from these four countries are more prominent for men than women for both types of interpartnering, and the most pronounced country differences in interpartnering are for partnerships with non-conational foreign-born. Findings further show that socialization processes and modes of incorporation – key components of immigrant assimilation theories – do not explain interpartnering with non-conational foreign-born.

Authors

• Claudia Patricia Masferrer Leon, McGill University

• Celine Le Bourdais, McGill University

• Zoua M. Vang, McGill University