STRUCTURAL AND ASSIMILATIONIST EXPLANATIONS OF ASIAN-AMERICAN INTERMARRIAGE

This study represents our efforts to synthesize two intermarriage pers pectives-one explaining intermarriage at the micro level using individ ual attributes, the other explaining it at the macro level using aggre gated community characteristics. The 5% Public Use Microdata Samples f rom the 1980 U.S. Census were used to link individual and community da ta. The empirical assessment of the linked model showed great promise, indicating that the explanatory power of our model was significantly improved when one set of factors was supplemented by the other. Our fi ndings support the cultural assimilation hypothesis but contradicted t he structural assimilation arguments. Contextual factors such as group size and sex ratio also exerted strong structural constraints on mari tal choices. This study is one of the first to provide information abo ut the determinants of intermarriage for six different Asian subgroups residing in the continental U.S.