The Effects of Migration on the Transition to First Marriage among Latinos in the Context of USA and Mexico

Seung Yong Han, Arizona State University

The purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of migration on the transition to first marriage among Latinos living in USA and Mexico. International migration is expected to delay marriage, but it is not at city level. By using Southwest Migration Study (SWMS) including life history calendar, collected in 2009 in USA and Mexico, migration is divided into three levels: country, state, and city level. Discrete-time event history model is used to estimate the effect of migration at each level. Since cohabitation has been common in Latin countries, cohabitation is considered as competing risk. There are two main results based on the preliminary results. First, international migration accelerates the rate of marriage or cohabitation significantly. Second, employment status decelerates the rate of marriage, but has no effect on the transition to first cohabitation. Further analysis would be done by exploring migration experience at various levels.