Multiracial Americans: Racial Identity Choices and Implications for the Collection of Race Data

Estimates of the size of the multiracial population in the United States depend on what prompts people to report multiple races on censuses and surveys. We use data from the 2015 Pew Survey of Multiracial Adults to explore how racial self-identification is shaped by the generational locus of an individual’s multiracial ancestry—that is, the place in one’s family tree where the earliest interracial union appears. We develop the theoretical rationale for considering generational heterogeneity and provide its first empirical demonstration for U.S. adults, by estimating what shares of the population identify multiracial ancestry in their parents’ or grandparents’ generation, or further back in their family tree. We find that multiracial generation is related to—and likely confounded with—the ancestry combinations that individuals report (e.g., white-Asian, black–American Indian). Finally, we show that later generations are less likely than their first-generation counterparts to select multiple races when they self-identify. Consequently, we argue that generational locus of multiracial ancestry should be taken into account by demographers and researchers who study outcomes for multiracial Americans.

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“… 1. For useful overviews of the existing literature, see Bratter (2007), Khanna (2012), and Song (2017b). …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Generational Locus of Multiraciality and Its Implications for Racial Self-Identification

Morning¹,

Saperstein²

2018

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Scie

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“…One possible explanation for these differences is racial fluidity, the propensity of some individuals to report a different race over time or when contexts change. Racial fluidity may impact all race and Hispanic origin groups to some extent, but we may observe this to a greater extent for the NHPI, AIAN, and multiple race populations (Doyle and Kao 2007, Harris and Sim 2002, Kana'iaupuni and Liebler 2005, Khanna 2012, Liebler et al 2014. Both NHPI and AIAN populations have large proportions of individuals that identify with their mixed heritage.…”

Section: A Race and Hispanic Origin Responses In Administrative Recomentioning

confidence: 92%

Exploring Administrative Records Use for Race and Hispanic Origin Item Non-Response

Rastogi¹,

Fernández²,

Noon³

et al. 2017

Preprint

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Race and Hispanic origin data are required to produce official statistics in the United States. Data collected through the American Community Survey and decennial census address missing data through traditional imputation methods, often relying on information from neighbors. These methods work well if neighbors share similar characteristics, however, the shape and patterns of neighborhoods in the United States are changing. Administrative records may provide more accurate data compared to traditional imputation methods for missing race and Hispanic origin responses. This paper first describes the characteristics of persons with missing demographic data, then assesses the coverage of administrative records data for respondents who do not answer race and Hispanic origin questions in Census data. The paper also discusses the distributional impact of using administrative records race and Hispanic origin data to complete missing responses in a decennial census or survey context.

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“…For example, studies suggested that multiracial respondents with Black heritage are more likely to identify with Black than their other ancestry (Campbell 2007;Oware 2008). Similarly, though more than 75 percent of Blacks have multiracial ancestry, only 4 percent identify as something other than Black (Khanna 2012). Although such research does indicate that societal norms such as the one-eighth rule still seem to play a role in identity formation, it is not clear if this is true for persons who already identify as multiracial, and of more relevance, it is not clear how these types of societal pressures affect people's decision-making with regard to the location of neighborhoods and communities in which they choose to live.…”

Section: Hierarchical Minority Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatially Based Rules for Reducing Multiple–Race into Single–Race Data

Cabrera

Cruz

2020

City & Community

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There is a discord between the categorization of mixed-race data in spatial studies, which has become more complex as the mixed-race population increases. We offer an efficient, spatially based method for assigning mixed-race respondents into single-race categories. The present study examined diversity within 25 Metropolitan Statistical Areas in the United States to develop this racial bridging method. We identify prescriptions for each two-race category based on average diversity experiences and similarity scores derived from census tract data. The results show the following category assignments: (1) Black-Asians to Black, (2) White-others to White, (3) Asian-others to Asian, (4) White-Blacks to other, (5) White-Asians to White (if Asian >3.0 percent), (6) White-Asians to Asian (if Asian <3.0 percent), (7) Black-Asians to other (if Black >8.5 percent), and (8) Black-Asians to Black (if Black <8.5 percent). We argue that the proposed method is appropriate for all race-based studies using spatially relevant theoretical constructs such as segregation and gentrification.

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Multiracial Americans: Racial Identity Choices and Implications for the Collection of Race Data

Cited by 18 publications

References 76 publications

The Generational Locus of Multiraciality and Its Implications for Racial Self-Identification

The Generational Locus of Multiraciality and Its Implications for Racial Self-Identification

Exploring Administrative Records Use for Race and Hispanic Origin Item Non-Response

Spatially Based Rules for Reducing Multiple–Race into Single–Race Data

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