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New Marriages, New Families: U.S. Racial and Hispanic Intermarriage
Population Bulletin, Jun 2005 by Lee, Sharon M, Edmonston, Barry
Gender Differences
There are three patterns in intermarriage rates by gender, as shown in Table 2. In the first pattern, men and women from a group are equally likely to intermarry. This was the pattern for white, American Indian, Hawaiian, SOR, and MR groups. In the past, Hawaiian and American Indian women were more likely than men in these groups to intermarry, but this gender differential was negligible in 2000.
In the second pattern, men from a particular group are more likely to intermarry than women in that group. Blacks exemplify this pattern. Black men are more than twice as likely as black women to intermarry, a differential that has widened in recent years. In 1970, about 2 percent of black men were intermarried, compared with less than 1 percent of black women. In 2000, almost 10 percent of black men, but just 4 percent of black women, had a nonblack spouse.
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In the third pattern, women in a racial group are more likely to intermarry than are men in that group. Asians exemplify this pattern, and this gender gap has remained fairly stable over the past 30 years. In 1970, 25 percent of Asian women and 14 percent of Asian men were intermarried. In 2000, 22 percent of Asian women were in interracial marriages, compared with 10 percent of Asian men.
The gender differences in intermarriage in some racial groups are not easily explained, but many factors probably contribute, including male and female roles within various racial groups and social relations among specific groups. Sociologist Robert Merton proposed the status exchange thesis to explain why black men were more likely to intermarry than black women.23 In his wellknown theory, first described in 1941, Merton suggested that marriage between a black man and a white woman could be viewed as an exchange of the man's higher achieved status (usually his education, income, or occupation) for the woman's higher racial status.24 Since women had fewer socioeconomic opportunities in the past, a black woman is less likely to have the economic resources to exchange for a white man's higher racial status. However, several studies that evaluated Merlon's thesis with more recent data and with more groups have questioned its applicability to other types of racial intermarriage-for example, between nonblack minority women and white men, or between nonblack minority men and white women. Researchers continue to explore reasons behind different gender patterns of intermarriage.25
Interracial Couples
Some types of interracial couples are more common than others for demographic and social reasons as well as because of individual preferences. In addition to the relative size of racial groups, the age and sex profile of these groups can affect the probability of intermarriage. If there are far more men than women in the prime marriage ages (for example, between ages 20 and 35) in one group, then men from this group are more likely to intermarry than men in a group with a more balanced sex ratio in these ages. But individual preferences and social factors-such as perceived attractiveness of potential marital partners-are also important.
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