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III. Results
A. Descriptive Statistics
The first four columns of Table 1 show the racial differences
in various individual, family, and first union characteristics. When
comparing across racial groups, Asian American young adults have
higher educational achievement at Wave 4 (48.09% completed
college) and more advantaged socioeconomic profile at home than
their white, African American, and Hispanic peers. Nearly 70% of
them come from two-biological-parent families and about half of
them have mothers with at least some college education. For
nativity status, Asian Americans are heavily represented by
first-generation young adults (43.36%), a pattern not seen in other
racial groups. Young Asian Americans have the highest percentage
of never experiencing cohabitation by Wave 4 (41.30%) among all
groups. They are also more likely to stay single in young adulthood
(55.81%) than their white and Hispanic counterparts (45.57% and
51.04%). The percentage of first cohabitation formed by Asian
Americans that end in marriage (44.73%) is only higher than
African Americans but lower than whites and Hispanics. Asian
American young adults also have the highest percentage of
inter-racial first cohabiting unions (51%) among all four races. As
for first marital union, only slightly more than half of all first
marriages (51.93%) formed by Asian American young adults are
preceded by a cohabitation, which is much lower than any of the
other three racial groups. About 44% of the first marriages formed
by Asian Americans are racially exogamous unions, which is again
much higher than the other three races. When first cohabitations
are compared with first marriages, the percentage of Asian
Americans who had a white cohabiting partner (27%) is roughly
the same as the percentage of Asian Americans who married a white
partner (25%). This pattern can also be observed in the other racial