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“Ethnic Variations in Characteristics of First Unions” 207
and whites are comparatively more stable relationships, as they
more often lead to marriages. On the other hand, the odds of first
marriages being preceded by cohabitation are more than two times
higher for Filipinos than those of East Asians. Having a white
partner significantly raises the risk of cohabitation prior to entering
a first marriage. This finding is also indicative of Filipinos’ higher
level of acculturation in the American mainstream culture of
growing premarital cohabitation.
Finally, for the race of cohabiting or married partners,
Filipinos are more likely to cohabit with Asian coethnics or
individuals from other minority groups than with whites, when
compared with their East Asian peers. For the race/ethnicity of a
married partner, East Asians are the group that has the highest
likelihood of partnering with whites than their Filipino or South
Asian counterparts. Given the significant influence of American
culture on Philippine society during the first half of the twentieth
century and the longer history of Filipino immigration to the U.S.,
one would think that Filipino Americans should have higher union
formation rates with white Americans than the other two Asian
subgroups. An earlier study that used the 1990 Census data showed
that Filipino Americans have the largest share of the interracial
marriages with whites among Asian Americans (Qian, Blair, & Ruf,
2001). The much higher rate of having white cohabiting and
marital partners among East Asian Americans for this younger
cohort of adults in the current study may signal a new trend and is
an intriguing issue for future research to confirm with a larger
analytical sample. The patterns show that while Filipino Americans
appear to be more acculturated in terms of higher cohabitation
rates prior to marriage and slower transition to first marriage than
South Asians, they tend to partner more with other Asian coethnics
and minority groups (i.e., African Americans or Hispanics) than
their East Asian counterparts. In a way, they have a lower level of
integration into mainstream culture by maintaining a further social
distance from the majority group than East Asian immigrants. This