Migration to the US and marital mobility

When immigrants enter the US they typically access a marriage market with a larger supply of educated spouses compared to the marriage market in their home countries. Absent any selectivity bias, this access should increase the likelihood that migrants ‘marry-up’ in terms of education. We combine survey data on British and German immigrants in the US with data on natives in Britain and Germany to estimate the causal effect of migration on educational mobility through cross-national marriage. To control for selective mating, we instrument educational attainment using government spending on education in the years each person was of school-age. To control for selective migration, we instrument the migration decision using inflows of immigrants to the US during puberty and early adulthood. We find strong selectivity effects that work against the positive prospects of the US marriage market. All migrants give up spousal education in exchange for US entry and assimilation. Migrant men also give up spousal education because they cannot compete with native men as bread-earners. Migrant women have some advantage in the US marriage market, as they can compete with native women in home production.