The result provides strong evidence of exchange – youth for access to spousal citizenship net of education, past marital history and age at marriage. For example, among brides from Southeast Asia, those marrying a citizen either before or upon entering the US are roughly 10 years younger than their spouse. Once the non-citizen woman is in the US and marries a citizen, the predicted spousal age difference drops to 6 years. When a Southeast Asian woman marries a non-citizen outside of the US or upon entering the exchange is smaller at only 2.5 years, falling to 2 years when marrying a non-citizen in the US. Among non-citizen women from Russia and the Baltic States, the predicted age gap is 9.1 years for marriages to a citizen that occur prior to or upon her arrival, falling to 6.5 for marriages to a non-citizen after she has resided in the US for at least a year, 3.2 years for marriages to a fellow non-citizen either prior to or upon arrival, and 2.7 years for marriages to a non-citizen after she has resided in the US for at least a year. We find this continuum of exchange for all regions with the exception of immigrant women from Canada.
