THE SES SELECTIVITY OF INTERRACIALLY MARRIED ASIANS

How do outmarried Asians compare to their inmarried counterparts and t o their spouses in terms of socioeconomic status? We attempt to answer this question by testing hypotheses derived from assimilation, exchan ge, and economic theories. The study is conducted using a representati ve U.S. sample of married Asians. Results based on multinomial legit a nalyses indicate that Asian women with lower educational attainment ha ve a higher propensity to outmarry racially, irrespective of the race of their husbands. Corresponding findings for Asian men provide weak e vidence of negative selectivity. Furthermore, those who outmarry racia lly tend to marry persons with lower levels of education than themselv es. While challenging a fe iv conventional wisdoms ingrained in sociol ogical and economic theories, these findings support several others.