Which Statistical Measure for the Monitoring of Trends in Mixed Marriages?

Mixed marriages have long been considered important indicators of the social integration of immigrants, as well as potential factors of social and cultural change. Nowadays, much of the interest towards this topic is in the potential adoption for policy purposes of mixed marriages as indicator of social integration of migrants, a dimension still missing in existing sets of indicators which mostly cover the economic dimensions (cf. Huddleston et al. 2011, Eurostat 2011). However, there is not a single measure to analyse mixed marriages. Lanzieri (2011) has reviewed several of them, making a first assessment of their capacity to properly follow the dynamics of mixed marriages. In that preliminary analysis, it is found that some measures do not have the expected behaviour. By using simulated data, this study intends to extend and deepen that investigation, looking at the behaviour of the measures of mixed marriages when their dynamic over time is analysed. The purpose is thus to assess whether those measures provide a reliable indication of the extent and speed of change, looking from the perspective of a user (such as a policy-maker) who needs to monitor the process of migrants' integration.