Education and black-white interracial marriage

Abstract

This article examines competing theoretical claims regarding how an individual's education will affect his or her likelihood of interracial marriage. I demonstrate that prior models of interracial marriage have failed to adequately distinguish the joint and marginal effects of education on interracial marriage and present a model capable of distinguishing these effects. I test this model on black-white interracial marriages using 1980, 1990, and 2000 U.S. census data. The results reveal partial support for status exchange theory within black male-white female unions and strong isolation of lower-class blacks from the interracial marriage market. Structural assimilation theory is not supported because the educational attainment of whites is not related in any consistent fashion to the likelihood of interracial marriage. The strong isolation of lower-class blacks from the interracial marriage market has gone unnoticed in prior research because of the failure of prior methods to distinguish joint and marginal effects.

Intercultural Dating at Predominantly White Universities in the United States: The Maintenance and Crossing of Group Borders

“…The effect of education on intercultural marriage differs by race/ethnicity, such that Black-Latina and White-Latina gaps in intermarriage are largest among college-educated women [2,4]. This is because Latinas significantly increase their likelihood of intermarriage with increasing education, whereas Black and White women show essentially no change in intermarriage with increasing education [2].…”

“…Education is expected to increase the likelihood of intercultural romantic relationships and eventually marriage [3]. However, the evidence from intercultural marriages shows that even among college-educated Americans significant and substantial racial/ethnic-by-gender gaps remain [2,4]. Nonetheless, prior analyses of intercultural marriages lump together all currently married Americans, the majority of whom attended postsecondary institutions that were significantly less racially/ethnically diverse than colleges and universities of today.…”

Cor, educação e casamento: tendências da seletividade marital no Brasil, 1960 a 2000

“…Todos os modelos estimados são usuais e suas especificações podem ser obtidas na literatura (Hout, 1983;Powers e Xie, 2000). Além disso, modelos para testar a hipótese das trocas de status (Merton, 1941) também foram estimados, mas não se ajustaram bem aos dados, indicando que as barreiras de cor e educação são as características predominantes do mercado matrimonial brasileiro (Gullickson, 2006). Como usual, a referência aos termos utilizados nos modelos apresentados nas tabelas seguintes são feitas apenas utilizando os termos sobrescritos das Equações 1 e 2 anteriores 3 .…”

Segregation in Social Networks Based on Acquaintanceship and Trust

“…Residential segregation between blacks and whites declined between 1970 and 2000 though not to a large extent and not uniformly, while Asian and Hispanic residential segregation has slightly increased (Massey and Denton, 1993;Ice-land et al, 2002;Frey and Myers, 2005). Families have become more heterogeneous, and interracial marriages in particular have increased though remain relatively rare (Ellwood and Jencks, 2004;Gullickson, 2006). Meanwhile, abundant evidence has emerged concerning the growing correlation of statuses in American society, a process that Blau (1977) characterized as the "consolidation" of social parameters.…”