Three Essays on Marriage, Family Structure and Racial Inequality: The Case of China and Chinese Americans

Abstract

This dissertation is composed of three essays focus on intergroup marriage and female-headed households. I am motivated by recognizing systemic or structural factors affecting marriage outcomes in China and Chinese Americans in the United States. The first essay, “Who Gains and Who Loses from Interethnic Marriage? -- Evidence from Western China”, estimates economic returns from interethnic marriages in China. Until now, interethnic marriage has not been tested as a possibility for overcoming the Han-ethnic Minzu earnings disparity. I employ an instrumental variable approach to estimate returns from Han-Minzu intermarriages. The estimates indicate that ethnic Minzu do not gain statistically significant benefits by marrying Han. Furthermore, the returns for Han and ethnic Minzu members from intermarriage are different once controlling the unobserved correlation between intermarriage and earnings. The second essay, “Linking the Supply of Marriageable Males and Female-Headed Families: the case of China”, measures the linkage between supply of marriageable males to the formation of female headship. Focusing on the economic desirability of unmarried men, rather than just quantity of men, I propose a new male marriageability measure. My measure presents a sizeable and negative relationship between male marriageability and female headship for ethnic Minzu, but an insignificant, minimal relation for Han. The demonstrated ethnic differences relate to potential employment inequality faced by Minorities/Minzu men and the disparate marriage market for ethnic Minzu women in China. The third essay, “Anti-Miscegenation Laws, Chinese Exclusion Acts and Interracial Marriages of Chinese Americans between 1880 and 1940”, examines impacts from U.S. anti-miscegenation laws on interracial marriages for Chinese Americans. U.S. Not every state had an Anti-Miscegenation Law, and not every state excluded Chinese from marrying whites. Using the U.S. Decennial Census data from 1880 to 1940 and employing the difference-in-difference estimator, my results show no statistically significant impact from Chinese anti-miscegenation laws on both Chinese males’ and females’ interracial marriages. This finding is robust to an event history analysis and a synthetic cohort method. The historical ban on Chinese interracial marriages establishes the backdrop of high incidence of Chinese interracial marriages in the 21st century.