More Than “I Do”: Legal Status and Cultural Distance Shape Marriages and Separations
In recent decades, Europe has experienced an unprecedented wave of migration, transforming the cultural and social landscape of host countries. In Italy, immigration has profoundly changed the dynamics of the marriage market, posing not only economic but also cultural challenges. In this context, marriages between Italian citizens and foreign migrants are often considered a clear sign of integration by the latter. For many migrants, however, marriage to an Italian citizen represents not only an emotional bond, but also an opportunity to acquire legal status and access to the labor market.
What happens, then, when immigration policies change the rules of the game? And how do these changes affect the marriage choices and the stability of mixed couples? The paper “There’s More to Marriage Than Love: The Effect of Legal Status and Cultural Distance on Intermarriages and Separations” by Jérôme Adda and Paolo Pinotti of Bocconi University and Giulia Tura of LUISS University, forthcoming in the Journal of Political Economy, provides surprising answers to these questions, revealing how access to legal status and cultural distance influence marriages and separations between natives and migrants.
A new perspective on mixed marriages
The study used data on 3.6 million marriages and more than 200,000 separations in Italy between 1998 and 2012, focusing on the effects of the progressive enlargement of the European Union in 2004 and 2007. EU enlargement enabled millions of Eastern European citizens to obtain legal status, radically transforming marriage dynamics in Italy.
Results show that access to legal status has dramatically reduced the likelihood of migrants marrying Italian citizens. After EU enlargement, mixed marriages between Italian citizens and migrants from the new EU member states fell by 40 percent. This effect was particularly noticeable among Eastern European women, who preferred to marry within their cultural group after gaining the right to work and reside in Italy. This result highlights how cultural distance between groups of different origins is a major determinant of marriage choices and, at the same time, how economic and institutional incentives are effectively bridging this perceived distance.
At the same time, separations of mixed couples formed before enlargement increased by 20 percent, showing how the recognition of legal status reduced the incentive to maintain the marriage bond.
Beyond the sheer number of marriages, the legalization of foreign migrants has also influenced the cohabitation patterns between foreign migrants and Italian citizens. After the EU enlargement, couples between new EU citizens and natives experienced between 5 and 10 percentage points higher birth rates than other mixed couples. This means that immigration policies affect not only the number of marriages but also their stability and quality, i.e., the perceived value of marriage, by incentivizing investment in family life as well as fertility.
Beyond romantic love
The study shows how access to legal status affects not only economic integration, but also migrants’ personal and family choices. Legalization helps integration into the labor market but reduces the number of mixed marriages, potentially slowing the process of cultural integration.
The implications of these findings are profound. At a time when the debate over immigration and cultural integration is increasingly heated, these results invite reflection on how to balance access to legal rights with the promotion of lasting social cohesion.
Jérôme Adda comments, “Our analysis shows the complex nature of legalization policies and assesses their spillover effects on other important choices that both natives and migrants make.” Love can break down many barriers, but when intertwined with issues of legal status and cultural distance, the path to full integration becomes much more complex and intriguing to explore.
