Looking for a Good Match? a Comparison of Transnational and Intra-National Couples in the UK Pakistani and Sikh Communities

In the last decade most Western-European countries have passed legislation restricting marriage-related immigration.  While these laws apply to all migrants wishing to join their spouses, the surrounding discourse is especially concerned with marriages between ethnic minorities and partners from the (parental) country of origin.  Some consider such marriages as detrimental to integration, both because the choice of a transnational spouse is considered to reflect a lack of integration and because it is assumed that the migrant spouse will struggle to integrate. Empirical investigations of these claims remain limited.  Focussing on education and employment as indicators of structural integration, this paper uses data from the UK Labour Force Survey (2004-2013) to compare intra-national and transnational marriages among British Pakistani Muslims and British Indian Sikhs (the two largest groups concerned). We examine three questions: 1) How does the socio-economic position of transnational couples compare to that of intra-national couples?, 2) Is there a difference in educational or occupational matching of transnational versus intra-national couples? , 3) Is there a difference in educational and occupational matching between UK-born and raised women and men marrying transnationally?. This analysis will allow us to assess differences between these types of couples in terms of structural integration, and also assess whether these differences are primarily related to characteristics of the British or the immigrant spouse. Differences between couples according to the gender of the migrant spouse will also be considered.  This paper is part of a larger ESRC funded project on ‘Marriage Migration and Integration’.