Racial Intermarriage Pairings

PWP-CCPR-2001-010

Abstract

Most studies of racial intermarriage rely on the prevalence of intermarriage to measure the strength of group boundaries, without scrutinizing the nature of intermarriage pairings. Examining the characteristics of intermarried couples reveals that (1) intermarriages and endogamous marriages follow different patterns, and (2) that racial intermarriage pairings reflect a status hierarchy of racial groups inconsistent with a pattern of in-group preference. Evidence from the 1990 US Census PUMS, indicates that patterns in Blacks and Mexican Americans marriages with whites suggest that a racial hierarchy disadvantages members of these minority groups. For marriages between Japanese Americans and whites, however, crossing the group boundary does not affect couples characteristics.