ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes contrasts in the economic opportunities of partners in national and binational couples and in people’s perceptions of their social position. It also explores the roles of language skills and discrimination in channeling natives and foreigners to particular jobs and in explaining contrasts in the returns to educational cultural capital. It shows that in the cities and countries examined, and with the sole exception of males from poorer European countries, foreign partners in binational couples display similar employment levels, occupational status, and earnings than does the local population. The chapter also shows that those foreign partners in binational couples who benefit from better objective employment situation and earnings conditions on average tend to place themselves on a lower echelon in the stratification scale than do nationals in the same objective economic situation. In contrast to this, and paradoxically, foreign partners with low education and from poorer countries, those most disadvantaged relative to nationals in the labor market, on average tend to place themselves on a higher echelon in the stratification scale than do nationals with the same qualifications and in the same objective economic situation.
