Friendship networks and interethnic union formation

Zantvliet, P.I. van; Kalmijn, Matthijs

doi:10.1177/0265407513478378

Cited by 14 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…Indeed, a strong version of this expectation has been the premise of school desegregation efforts since the 1950s and college diversity policies since the 1970s, both of which have sought to improve race relations by bringing individuals into contact across racial lines. However, van Zantvliet and Kalmijn (2013) found that interethnic friendships did not mediate the effects of social context on the odds of being in an interethnic relationship. Instead interracial networks may have an additive effect, for example, creating variation among individuals in their response to the same demography and cultural attitudes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 80%

“…Its sample is not restricted to college students on California campuses (Clark-Ibanez and Felmlee 2004; Levin et al 2007) or to immigrant children in gateway cities (van Zantvliet and Kalmijn 2013), thereby including a larger subsample of African Americans. Add Health also collected network data using name generators that identified friends before asking about their individual characteristics (Smith 2002) instead of asking direct questions that are more vulnerable to social desirability bias, such as “How many black friends do you have?” Add Health’s network data are also preferable to those in the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study, which narrowly operationalizes friends’ ethnicity using parents’ country of birth (i.e., “In what countries were your friends’ parents born?”) (van Zantvliet and Kalmijn 2013). Add Health’s main limitation is its sample size, which is far smaller than is typical in marriage studies that rely on census data; thus my analysis also lacks the statistical power to examine every possible interracial combination.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, Levin, Taylor, and Caudle (2007) found that college students who dated interracially were more likely to have had interracial friendships before college than students who only dated same-race partners. Similarly, van Zantvliet and Kalmijn (2013) found that immigrant children who had interethnic friendships in adolescence were more likely to have an interethnic partner by early adulthood than those who had homogeneous immigrant networks. In addition, the interracial romantic involvements of one’s friends may provide additional social exposure, signals, and performances that encourage interracial contact (i.e., network culture).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 92%

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It Starts Early: Toward a Longitudinal Analysis of Interracial Intimacy

Shiao

2018

Sociology of Race and Ethnicity

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Researchers regard interracial intimacy as a mechanism for integration because of the assumption that the partners come from distinct social worlds (e.g., racially homogeneous friendship networks). Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), the author investigates the relationship between interracial friendship and interracial intimacy, specifically the question of how young adults’ chances of having an interracial romantic relationship depend on the racial composition of their friends during adolescence and their exposure to interracial relationships among these friends. The author finds that early interracial friendship remains a significant positive influence on the likelihood of subsequent interracial intimacy, even after controlling for opportunities for interracial friendship, personal characteristics, local variations in social distance, and selection effects. This suggests that a substantial fraction of interracial romantic relationships in early adulthood involve partners from social worlds that are already racially heterogeneous. Despite the robustness of this finding, there are also substantial variations in the magnitude of the association between interracial friendship and intimacy, which furthermore coexists with social distances larger than the effects of interracial friendships. In brief, the primary influence of interracial friendship may be to produce the perception of select individuals as exceptions to their respective race-gender groups.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 80%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 92%

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It Starts Early: Toward a Longitudinal Analysis of Interracial Intimacy

Shiao

2018

Sociology of Race and Ethnicity

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“…an indicator of the degree to which different groups in society accept each other as equals" (p. 459). In support of this notion, Van Zandvliet and Kalmijn (2013) found that having ethnically diverse friendship networks and attending schools with pupils from other ethnic identities positively affected the likelihood of entering in dating, cohabitation, and marriage with members of other ethnic groups. In a particularly illustrative longitudinal study, Levin, Taylor, and Caudle (2007) found that intergroup dating resulted in more positive attitudes at the end of college, underlining the importance of interethnic dating for the integration of minority groups.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Sex and Marriage With Members of Other Ethnic Groups

Buunk

Dijkstra

2016

Cross-Cultural Research

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Given the importance of interethnic intimate relationships for the integration of minority groups, the present study examined attitudes toward marriages and sexual relationships with in-group and out-group members among young second-generation immigrants in the Netherlands compared with the Dutch. A sample of 95 ethnically Dutch, 68 Moroccan, and 68 Turkish individuals aged between 15 and 25, living in the Netherlands filled out an online questionnaire. Overall, individuals showed a preference for a marital partner from the same ethnic group as themselves, but a less pronounced preference for a sexual partner from their own ethnic group. Turkish and Moroccan, but not Dutch, men would rather engage in a sexual relationship than in a marriage with a Dutch woman, and rather in a marriage than in a sexual relationship with a woman from their own ethnic group. In contrast, women, especially Moroccan women would rather engage in a marriage than in a sexual relationship, preferably with someone of their own ethnic group. Finally, the more religious they were, the more Turkish and Moroccan women preferred a marital partner from their own ethnic group. Findings are discussed in the light of the integration of different ethnic groups in society.

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“…Our choice of instrument is influenced by the existing literature which suggests that geographic factors, such as ethnic and religious diversity, could influence friendship network composition. Specifically, existing literature has demonstrated that the choice of friends or partners is conditional on the pool of potential friends, from which an individual can choose (see, e.g., Kalmijn & Flap, 2001;Van Zantvliet & Kalmijn, 2013). Thus, geographic distribution determines the composition of friendship networks, given that opportunities for social contact determine social associations (Blau, 1977;Lieberson & Waters, 1988).…”

Section: Wherementioning

confidence: 99%

Friendship network composition and subjective well-being

Churchill

Smyth

2019

Oxford Economic Papers

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. AbstractUsing data from the UK Community Life Survey, we present the first study to examine the relationship between heterogeneity in one's friendship network and subjective wellbeing. We measure network heterogeneity by the extent to which one's friends are similar to oneself with regard to ethnicity and religion. We find that people who have friendship networks with characteristics dissimilar to themselves have lower levels of subjective wellbeing. Specifically, our two-stage least squares (2SLS) estimates, using measures of ethnic and religious diversity based on the Herfindahl-type fractionalization index that are flipped between adjoining rural/urban areas as instruments, suggest that a standard deviation increase in the proportion of one's friends from different ethnic (religious) groups is associated with a decrease of 0.276 (0.451) standard deviations in subjective wellbeing. a positive effect on wellbeing, the composition of friendship networks are likely to have varying effects on wellbeing. The primary objective of this paper, then, is to examine how the degree of heterogeneity of one's friendship network is related to one's wellbeing. To measure heterogeneity in one's friendship networks we focus on ethnic and religious heterogeneity. Because friendship networks are endogenous, we instrument for friendship network composition using a flipped measure of ethnic and religious diversity, based on the Herfindahl-type fractionalization index (Greenberg, 1956). Using data from the UK Community Life Survey, we find that an increase in the proportion of respondents' friends from different ethnic and religious groups, respectively, is associated with lower levels of subjective wellbeing. Specifically, our two-stage least squares (2SLS) estimates, using the flipped measures of ethnic and religious diversity as instruments, suggest that a standard deviation increase in the proportion of one's friends from different ethnic (religious) groups is associated with a decrease of 0.276 (0.451) standard deviations in subjective wellbeing. We also observe some differences based on age and gender, although the results are mostly homogenous between different ethnicities and people of different religious beliefs.We contribute to the literature by presenting the first study that examines the effects of network composition on wellbeing. Despite the explosion of research on the determinants of wellbeing and particularly, the role of friendship in enhancing wellbeing, no ...

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Friendship networks and interethnic union formation

Cited by 14 publications

References 53 publications

It Starts Early: Toward a Longitudinal Analysis of Interracial Intimacy

It Starts Early: Toward a Longitudinal Analysis of Interracial Intimacy

Sex and Marriage With Members of Other Ethnic Groups

Friendship network composition and subjective well-being

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