New Marriages, New Families: U.S. Racial and Hispanic Intermarriage

Population Bulletin, Jun 2005 by Lee, Sharon M, Edmonston, Barry

Children in Interracial Families

As interracial marriage rates continue to increase in the United States, the number and proportion of multiracial families with children will also increase. Because the increase in intermarriage is relatively recent and because intermarried couples are still a small proportion of all married couples, we are just beginning to learn about children who grow up in interracial families.39 What is the racial identification for children in multiracial households, for example, and how has this changed? And how does the socioeconomic environment of children in interracial families compare with that for children in racially endogamous families?

Because an adult usually fills out the census form for everyone else in the household, the racial identity reported for a child may or may not be the same one the child uses himself or herself, or the same as the other parent would have reported. The results cannot reveal whether there is agreement among household members about racial identity.

Also, census data do not reveal whether the child is the biological offspring of both parents. Other research has shown, however, that about 90 percent of children age 18 or younger who lived in married couple families in 2000 were the natural son or daughter of the householder. For same-race couples, 91 percent of children were natural sons or daughters of the householder, 6 percent were stepsons or stepdaughters, 2 percent were adopted, and the remaining 1 percent were other relatives (usually grandchildren). The results are similar for intermarried couples: 88 percent are natural sons or daughters, 8 percent are stepsons or stepdaughters, 3 percent are adopted sons or daughters, and about 1 percent are other relatives (usually grandchildren living in subfamilies). In some cases, a householder with a natural son or daughter may have remarried after having the child. In this case, the child is the natural son or daughter of the householder but is the stepson or stepdaughter of the householder's spouse. Census data only record current marital status, and do not reveal whether either spouse had previous marriages.

Increasing Numbers

In 2000, about two-thirds of the 71.8 million American children under age 18 lived in married-couple households. Most of the remaining onethird lived with single parents, with about 5 percent living with other relatives or in other types of household arrangements.40 Although only 6 percent of children lived with interracially married parents in 2000, this figure represented a dramatic increase from the numbers and relative proportions of children in families with an interracially married couple just 30 years ago (see Figure 8). The number increased from about 900,000 in 1970 to 3.4 million in 2000.

Interracial Families

The main types of interracial families for children closely resemble the main types of interracial couples shown in Figure 2, page 13. In 2000, the most common interracial family with children included a white and a multiple-race spouse; almost 800,000 children were in these families. In 1980 and 1990, the most common type of interracial family was white/SOR, accounting for more than one-fourth of all interracial families with children. In 1970, the most common type was white/Asian, which made up more than one-third of interracial families.