Divergent Pathways to Assimilation? Local Marriage Markets and Intermarriage Among U.S. Hispanics

Abstract

The growing diversity of the U.S. population raises questions about integration among America's fastest growing minority population—Hispanics. The canonical view is that intermarriage with the native‐born White population represents a pathway to assimilation that varies over geographic space in response to uneven marital opportunities. Using data on past‐year marriage from the 2009–2014 American Community Survey, the authors demonstrate high rates of intermarriage among Hispanics. The analyses identify whether Hispanics marry coethnics, non‐co‐ethnic Hispanics, non‐Hispanic Whites, non‐Hispanic Blacks, or other minorities. The authors highlight variation by race, nativity, and socioeconomic status and reveal that Hispanics living in new immigrant destinations are more likely to intermarry than those living in traditional Hispanic gateways. Indeed, the higher out‐marriage in new destinations disappears when the demographic context of reception is taken into account. The analysis underscores that patterns of marital assimilation among Hispanics are neither monolithic nor expressed uniformly across geographic space.

JessicaVasquez‐Tokos, Marriage Vows and Racial Choices, New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2017. xi + 272 p. $26.00.

“…For Latinos, statistical evidence based on past‐year marriages from the 2009–2014 American Community Survey also shows that 28 percent of American‐born Hispanics married non‐Hispanic whites. This figures compares with out‐marriage of only 11 percent among their foreign‐born Hispanic counterparts (Qian, Lichter, and Tumin ). The fact that out‐marriage is much lower among the foreign‐born provides indirect evidence of less incorporation or integration than among US‐born Hispanics.…”

Racial Diversity in the Marital Assimilation of Hispanics

“…Recent studies show that Hispanic intermarriages involving NH Whites are decreasing (Qian et al, ). Four alternative intermarriage patterns have emerged instead.…”

“…Others have posited that this trend emerged because Hispanic pan‐ethnic identity may have grown stronger during this time (Rumbaut, ). A third group maintained that Hispanic intermarriages have increasingly involved NH racial minorities due to the geographic dispersion of Hispanics and greater opportunities for Hispanics to interact with other racial minorities (Qian, Lichter, & Tumin, ).…”

“…Whether these intermarriage patterns persisted after 1990 remains a compelling and important issue to assess in view of the changes in size and composition of the Hispanic population. In their study of differences in Hispanic intermarriage patterns in traditional and new immigrant destinations, Qian et al () showed that Hispanic Whites married NH Whites at higher rates than they married non‐White Hispanics. These studies, however, focused on the White and non‐White divide and combined Hispanic Blacks and Hispanics who did not identify with an official U.S. racial category into a single group.…”

Migration and marriage in Asian contexts

“…Some Asian migrants have also crossed continental boundaries to settle in countries with very different social and cultural backgrounds, such as North America (Qian and Qian 2019). This migration experience uniquely shapes their marriage patterns (Choi and Tienda 2018;Qian, Lichter, and Tumin 2018).…”