This English-language paper, titled "The Intergenerational Differences in Marital Patterns among Korean Americans," was written by Pyong Gap Min (Professor of Sociology at Queens College/CUNY Graduate Center and Director of RCKC) and Chigon Kim (Professor of Sociology at Wright State University). Using U.S. Census data, Min and Kim examine differences in marriage patterns among different cohorts and generations of Korean Americans, including pre-1965 immigrants, post-1965 immigrants, 1.5-generation and U.S.-born Korean Americans, and single- and multi-racial Korean Americans. This paper will be featured as a chapter in a forthcoming book to be published by Lexington Books in late 2014-early 2015. The book will be titled Younger-Generation Korean Experiences in the United States and Canada, co-edited by Pyong Gap Min and Samuel Noh (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, University of Toronto).

This study examines whether there is an earnings premium for fluent bilingualism among 1.5-generation and U.S.-born Korean Americans in the labor market. The data come from the 2009-2011 American Community Surveys, and the sample is restricted to wage and salary workers. Logged annual wage and salary income was regressed on two dummy variables for bilingual competence—bilingual with fluent English proficiency and bilingual with limited English proficiency (English monolingual as reference category), controlling for indicators of human capital and the language-use environment. Findings show greater economic returns to fluent bilingualism among 1.5-generation Korean women and U.S.-born Korean men, but there is no convincing evidence of a wage premium for fluent bilingualism among U.S.-born Korean women. Surprisingly, there is evidence of wage penalties for fluent bilingualism among 1.5-generation Korean men in certain geographic areas and occupations. These mixed findings are consistent with the recent discussion of bilingualism as both human capital and ethnicity.

Key Words: Bilingualism, Earnings, Korean American, Generation, Gender 

*This paper was originally presented at the Fourth Annual Conference of the Research Center for Korean Community at Queens College, which was held at Queens College on April 5-7, 2013. This paper was also published in Development and Society, Volume 42, Number One, June 2013. We would like to thank Development and Society for allowing us to repost this article.