Ethnic differentials in the timing of family formation in Fiji cannot be adequately
explained by the norms, characteristics, minority group, and interaction hypotheses. The
missing dimensions are socioeconomic level within ethnicity and time, including the
marriage market effects of fertility transition. A complex interaction of factors involves
underlying norms and the opposing effects of modernisation, including the interaction
between socioeconomic level and ethnicity, and the changing marriage market
pressures determined by the ethnically differentiated fertility decline consistent with the
minority group hypothesis. Within each ethnicity, marriage market pressures are
concentrated at lower socioeconomic levels, resulting in decreasing trends in age at
marriage, and increased socioeconomic differentiation.