Interracial marriage
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Interracial marriage occurs when two people of differing races marry. This is a form of exogamy (marrying outside of one's social group) and can be seen in the broader context of miscegenation (mixing of different races in marriage, cohabitation, or sexual relations).
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[edit] Legality of Interracial Marriage
While it is now legal in most countries, certain jurisdictions have had regulations banning or restricting interracial marriage in the past. These include South Africa under apartheid, Germany in the Nazi period, and some states of the United States. While no longer forbidden to marry by law, couples of different races may still face social and cultural obstacles to their marriage in many societies.
[edit] In the United States
- See also: Race (United States Census)
In Social Trends in America and Strategic Approaches to the Negro Problem (1948), Gunnar Myrdal ranks the reasons for segregation according to Southern whites in the 1930s and 1940s from least to most important: jobs, courts and police, politics, basic public facilities, "social equality" including dancing, handshaking, and most important, marriage. This ranking scheme seems to have been upheld relatively well into the 1960s. Of less importance was the segregation in basic public facilities, which was abolished with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The most important reason for segregation, marriage, was not fully overcome until the last anti-miscegenation laws were struck down in 1967.
[edit] Interracial marriage statistics
In 1967, the Supreme Court ruling in Loving v. Virginia struck down the last of the anti-miscegenation laws in the United States, widening the available marriage choices. The number of interracial marriages in the United States has been on the rise: from 310,000 in 1970, to 651,000 in 1980, and 1,161,000 in 1992, according to the US Census of 1993. Interracial marriages represented 0.7% of all marriages in 1970, rising to 1.3% in 1980 and 2.2% in 1992. With the introduction of the mixed-race category, the 2000 census revealed interracial marriage to be somewhat more widespread, with 2,669,558 interracial marriages recorded, or 4.9% of all marriages (census 2000 PHC-T-19). (Here, marriages between two mixed-race persons, or where they are the same race but one is Hispanic and the other not, are not counted as interracial.)[1] In 2005 it is believed that 7% of married couples in the US are interracial.[2]
[edit] Asian and American Indian
Historically, Filipino Americans have frequently married American Indian and Alaskan Native people. In the 17th century, Filipinos were under Spanish rule. The Spanish colonists ordered the Filipinos to trade between the Philippines and the Americas. When Mexico revolted against the Spanish, Filipinos escaped into Mexico, then traveled to Louisiana, where the exclusively male Filipinos married American Indian women. In the 1920s, Filipino American communities grew in Alaska, and Filipino American men married Alaskan Native women. On the west coast, Filipino Americans married American Indian women in Bainbridge Island Washington.[3]
[edit] Asian and White
Marriages between whites and Asians are becoming increasingly common (Lange, 2005). As a whole, heterosexual Asian American females were 2.5 times more likely to marry a White American than their male counterparts. However, according to the 2000 US Census, heterosexual Asian American females of the 1.5 generation were 76% more likely to be married to a white person, as compared to their Asian American male counterparts; but, the percentage of 1.5 generation Asian American women is 56% more than Asian American men.[4] In terms of unmarried couples, Asian women cohabit more with white men 45% than with Asian men 43%.[5] A celebrity example is comedian Woody Allen, who married an Asian woman, Soon-Yi Previn. A 2001 national survey indicated that 24% of the respondents disapprove of marriage with an Asian American, second only to African Americans at 34%.[6]
[edit] Black and White
Although mixed-race partnering has increased, the United States still shows huge disparities between African American male and African American female endogamy statistics. The 1990 census reports that 17.6% of African American marriages occur with White Americans. Yet, African American men are 2.5 times more likely to be married to white women than African American women to white men. In the 2000 census, 239,477 African American male to white female and 95,831 white male to African American female marriages were recorded, again showing the 2.5-1 ratio. Despite this, slightly more black men are married than white women. Some celebrity examples include the marriages of golfer Tiger Woods and model Elin Nordegren, Seal and supermodel Heidi Klum. Actor Robert Deniro married a black woman, and former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan married a white woman.
[edit] Asian and Black
With African Americans and Asian Americans, the ratios are even further imbalanced, with 598% more Asian female/Black male couples than Asian male/Black female couples, according to the 2000 US Census. For the six largest Asian American ethnic groups, the absolute numbers of Asian American women are 51% more for Asian American women as opposed to Asian American men among the six largest Asian ethnic groups.[4] .Asian Americans of the 1.5 generation and of the five largest Asian American ethnic groups had Black male/Asian female marriages 222% more than Asian male/Black Female relationships.[4] Even though the disparity between Black and Asian interracial marriages by gender is high according to the 2000 US Census, the total numbers of Asian/Black interracial marriages are low, numbering only 2.2% percent for Asian male marriages and 10.2% percent of Asian female marriages.[4]
Chinese American men historically married African American women in high proportions to their total marriage numbers due to few Chinese American women being in the United States. After the Emancipation Proclamation, many Chinese people immigrated to the American South, particularly Arkansas, to work on plantations. The tenth US Census of Louisiana counted 57% of interracial marriages between these Chinese Americans to be with African Americans and 43% to be with White American women. After the Chinese Exclusion Act, Chinese American men had fewer potential Chinese American wives, so they increasingly married African American women on the west coast.[7]
[edit] Marriage squeeze
A new term has arisen to describe the social phenomenon of the so-called "marriage squeeze" for African American females.[8] The marriage squeeze refers to the belief that the most eligible and desirable African American men are marrying non-African American women, leaving those African American women who wish to marry African American men with fewer partnering options. According to Newsweek, 43% of black women between the ages of 30-34 have never been married.[9] Explanation of this phenomenon is threefold. In part it may be due to relatively fewer European American men being willing to marry African American women, as a result of the lingering effects of social ostracism to which past white American men, who have historically pursued relationships with African American women, were heavily subjected.[10] - although today one in five white Americans would seriously consider marrying across the color line nonetheless.[10] It may also be the result of a desire among African American women to marry African American men due to lingering concepts such as racial loyalty, black solidarity, and the internalized stereotypical belief that non-African American men would not find them attractive.[10] Lastly, there is a desire among educated women of all races to "marry up", although rising income for women has lessened this factor.[11] Another confounding factor for African American women may be the disproportionate mortality rate between men and women in the black community: there are only approximately 85 males for every 100 females by the time they reach their child-bearing years.
[edit] White and American Indian
The interracial disparity for American Indians is low. According to the 1990 US Census (which only counts indigenous people with US-government-recognized tribal affiliation), American Indian women intermarried White Americans 2% more than American Indian men married White women.[12]
[edit] Education and interracial marriage
Using PUMS data from both the 1980 and 1990 US Census to determine trends within interracial marriage among White Americans, African Americans, Hispanic or Latinos, and Asian Americans, it may be seen that endogamy (marrying within race) was more prevalent for African American men at lower education levels.
In 1980, the numbers were as follows: African American males without a high-school diploma participated in endogamy at 96.5%; for those who received a high-school diploma, 95.6%; for those with a college degree and above, the percentage of endogamy dropped to 94.0%. However, the rates for African American women changed very little with different educational levels. For the African American woman who had not received a high school diploma the rate was 98.7%, high school diploma was 98.6%, with some college it was 98.2%, and college degree or higher, 98.5%. During this time there was a significant increase in marriages between whites and African Americans, maintaining that African Americans are most likely to marry whites over other groups.
The 1990 results show that rates of endogamy dropped for both males and females, albeit more for the African American male. In 1990, an African American male with a college degree and more was participating in endogamy at 90.4%; for an African American female with the same educational level, 96.4%. The results for the propensity of individuals at higher educational attainment levels to participate less in endogamy over the 10-year period were similar across races, including whites, Hispanics, and Asian Americans.
[edit] Immigrants and interracial marriage
It is found that racial endogamy is much stronger for immigrants as compared to natives; it is 4.9 times more likely for immigrants of African descent than for African Americans. Additionally, immigrants of African descent have the highest rates of endogamy of immigrants. Also, African immigrants are much more likely to marry other same-race immigrants and African Americans, than to out-marry racially. Native-born White Americans are also 1.6 times more likely to marry a native-born African American than an immigrant of African descent. Female immigrants of African descent are generally more likely to marry native-born whites than their male counterparts.
[edit] Cohabitation and interracial marriage
Black American men are 2.5 times more likely to be married to a white spouse and 3.3 times more likely to be cohabitating with a White American, as compared to their Black American female counterparts. Research yields that 7% of married Black American men are with white wives and 15% of African American men cohabit with white women.[citation needed]
[edit] In the United Kingdom
- See also: United Kingdom Census 2001
As of 2001, 2% of all UK marriages are inter-ethnic. Despite having a much lower non-white population (9%), mixed marriages are as common as in the United States. For example, Black British men are significantly more likely to have non-white wives than African American men; 18% of UK black African husbands, 29% of UK black Caribbean husbands, and 48% of other Black British husbands have a wife from a different ethnic group.
[edit] Interracial marriage disparities for certain groups
A similar trend can be seen in the UK. According to the UK 2001 census [14], Black British males were around 50% more likely than black females to marry outside their race, whereas British Chinese women were twice as likely as their male counterparts to marry someone from a different ethnic group. Among British Asians (South Asians, not including Chinese), Pakistani and Bangladeshi males were twice as likely to to have an inter-ethnic marriage than their female counterparts, while Indian and "Other Asian" males were more likely to have an inter-ethnic marriage than their female counterparts by a smaller percentage.
[edit] In Australia
- See also: Demographics of Australia
[edit] Disparities in child-producing unions
Interracial and inter ethnic partnering disparities are evident in birth statistics, with Australian women more likely to form partnerships and families with foreign men than Australian men with foreign women[15].
In 2005 there were 255,481 live births in Australia. 71.5% of these infants were born to Australian-born fathers, and 75.9% were born to Australian-born mothers.
In unions between Australian and non-Australian born people that produce children, the Australian-born partner is more likely to be male when the female was born in North Asia, Southeast Asia, Russia, Poland, Hungary, Switzerland, Netherlands, Canada or Zimbabwe. Australian-born women rather than men are more likely to produce children with partners born elsewhere.
However the disparity is generally only marginal when the foreign-born partner is from Western Europe, New Zealand or the Americas. At an extreme there are 3.6 times more births to Australian-born men/Chinese-born women than to Australian-born women/Chinese-born men, while there are 2.7 times more births to Pakistani-born men/Australian-born women than to Pakistani-born women/Australian-born men.
[edit] In Africa
[edit] Interracial marriage disparities
Indian (Asian) men have married many African women in Africa. Indians have long been traders in East Africa. The British Empire brought workers into East Africa to build the Uganda Railway. Indians eventually populated South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Rhodesia and Zaire. These interracial unions were mostly unilateral marriages between Indian men and East African women.[16]
[edit] References
- ^ Portillo, Eli, Greve, Frank. "Social integration in the U.S., including cohabiting and marriage, is surging", McClatchy Newspapers, 2006-07-20. Retrieved on 2006-07-23.
- ^ http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Interracial-Marriage.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
- ^ Color Q World. Asian and Native Intermarriage in the US. September 1, 2006.
- ^ a b c d C.N. Le, "Interracial Dating & Marriage", Asian-Nation: The Landscape of Asian America (May 30, 2007).Retrieved May 25, 2007.
- ^ Swanbrow, Diane. University of Michigan. "Intimate Relationships between Races More Common Than Thought." 2000. June 8,2007. [1]
- ^ Matthew Yi, et al.. Asian Americans seen negatively. Retrieved on 2007-06-14.
- ^ Color Q World. September 1, 2006.Chinese Blacks in the United States.
- ^ Crowder, Kyle D, and Stewart E. Tolnay. "A New Marriage Squeeze for Black Women: The Role of Racial Intermarriage by Black Men." 2000. August 14, 2006.
- ^ Razib. Gene Expression. The Black Gender Gap. 2003. November 5, 2006.[2]
- ^ a b c Miller, Candace. Interracial Voice. Sauce for the Goose. 2001. August 14, 2006.
- ^ Melendez, Michele M. The San Diego Union-Tribune. Education is changing the face of wedded life. 2004. August 14, 2006.
- ^ U.S. Bureau of the Census. Race of Wife by Race of Husband. 1998. July 29, 2006.
- ^ National Statistics. Inter-ethnic Marriage. 2001. August 14, 2005. Inter-Ethnic Marriage: 2% of all marriages are inter-ethnic.
- ^ National Statistics. Inter-ethnic Marriage. 2001. August 14, 2005. Inter-Ethnic Marriage: 2% of all marriages are inter-ethnic.
- ^ Australian Bureau of Statistics. Births, Australia. 3301.0. 2005. Chapter 8. Tables 8.14 and 8.15 "Country of Birth of Father" and "Country of Birth of Mother"
- ^ Color Q World. Jotawa: Afro-Asians in East Africa. September 1, 2006.
