First Formal Romantic Unions among 1st, 2nd, and 2.5 Generations of Immigrant Women in Finland
Abstract
Immigrants and their descendants are increasingly forming families across Europe. Yet we know little about how immigrant generation, age at immigration, gender of immigrant parents, and sending region affect first union entry in emerging immigration regimes. Here, we explore how immigration background influenced first union formation for women in Finland from 1987-2020. Using non-immigrant Finns as the reference group (median age at first union 24.09; 95% CI: [24.08-24.10]), in Accelerated Failure Time models, women with one immigrant parent had the most similar ages at first unions (24.24 [24.19-24.30]). Among 1st generation immigrants, those arriving by age 12 formed unions earlier (24.83 [24.74-24.92]) than those arriving at ages 12-18 (25.19 [25.10-25.27]). Second generation immigrants formed unions later (25.14 [25.08-25.20]). Women with Sub-Saharan African or Middle Eastern and North African backgrounds experience union delays by 2-2.5 years compared to Finnish-origin women. These timing differences contribute to our knowledge of how sending and receiving contexts shape a pivotal life course transition that has been shown to affect subsequent socioeconomic outcomes, particularly for immigrant women navigating between cultural contexts.
Authors
Citlali Trigos-Raczkowski, Kelsey Q. Wright, Joonas Pitkänen, Silvia Loi, Pekka Martikainen, Heta Moustgaard, Mikko Myrskylä
Additional Information
- Peer-Reviewed: yes.
- Open Access: yes.
- Cite as: Citlali Trigos-Raczkowski, C., Kelsey Q. Wright, K. O., Pitkänen, J., Loi, S., Martikainen, P., Moustgaard, H., & Myrskylä, M. (2025). First Formal Romantic Unions among 1st, 2nd, and 2.5 Generations of Immigrant Women in Finland (MPIDR Working Paper WP 2025-012). https://doi.org/10.4054/MPIDR-WP-2025-012
