193 / 126
“Ethnic Variations in Characteristics of First Unions” 193
groups, indicating that cohabitation, as a relatively informal union,
is not significantly more likely to be racially exogamous than
marriage for all races.
Moving to the last three columns shown in Table 1, East Asian
and Filipino Americans tend to have better socio-demographic
profiles than South Asians. This is reflected in the percentage of
young adults who received some college education or a college
degree at Wave 4 and the average maternal education level across
groups. There are relatively more first-generation immigrants
among Filipino and South Asian immigrants. As for union
experiences in the next panel, South Asian Americans (42.71%) are
slightly more likely than other two Asian ethnic groups (41.41% for
East Asians and 39.68% for Filipinos) to have never cohabited by
Wave 4, but the differences do not show statistical significance. In
contrast, East Asian and Filipino young adults are more likely to
remain unmarried (64.61% and 57.97%) than their South Asian
counterparts (46.30%).
In the next panel, Asian Americans of East Asian origin
(37.13%) are particularly less likely than the other two subgroups
to make the transition to marriage after first cohabitation (48.37%
and 49.49%). As for the characteristics of first cohabiting partner,
the tendency to have a white cohabiting partner is much more
pronounced among East Asians than the other two Asian subgroups.
Nearly two-fifths of East Asians reported a first cohabitation with a
white partner, while the percentages for Filipinos and South Asians
are 13.73% and 26.84%.
In the bottom panel, a smaller share of South Asian American
married individuals (43.24%) had premarital cohabitation than the
other two Asian groups (57.12% for East Asians and 62.22%
for Filipinos). The tendency to marry a white partner is the
strongest among East Asians (49.17%) than among the other two
Asian subgroups (13.04% for Filipinos and 18.61% for South
Asians).