Intermarriage Demographic Trends

The 2010 U.S. Census determined three large categories of intermarriage status: (1) householders with a partner of a different race—interracial, (2) householders with a partner of a different Hispanic origin—interethnic, and (3) householders with a partner of a different race and/or origin. They are then broken down into two subcategories: (1) husband/wife and (2) unmarried partner household. Of all husband/wife households, the 2010 census reported that a household and spouse of different races constituted 6.9 percent, a household and spouse of different Hispanic origin 4.3 percent, and a household and spouse of different races and/or origins 9.5 percent, increasing respectively from 5.7 percent, 3.1 percent, and 7.4 percent in the 2000 census. The rates of interracial unmarried couples were higher than those of interracial married couples. The rates differed by region, with the west (such as Hawai'i) having the highest rates of intermarriage of the three types, ranging from 7.5 to 15.9 percent, and the midwest (such as Iowa) having the lowest.

In a report published in 2012 by the Pew Research Center, based on the data from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey from 2008 to 2010 and from the center's data collected through telephone surveys with 2,884 adults, Wendy Wang indicated the popularity of [Page 1221]intermarriage that doubled in rates from 6.7 percent of newlyweds in 1980 to 15 percent in 2010. The race with the highest intermarriage rate was the Asian population (28 percent), followed by Hispanics (26 percent), blacks or African Americans (17 percent), and whites (9 percent). By gender, Asian females (36 percent) had higher rates of intermarriage than their male counterparts (17 percent), whereas among blacks or African Americans, the pattern was reversed.

In terms of income, white/Asian married couples ($70,925) earned significantly higher incomes than both white/white ($60,000) and Asian/Asian ($62,000) married couples. As for perceptions of intermarriage, 43 percent of those surveyed reported that it was good for society; 11 percent that it was a change for the worse and 44 percent were neutral. The acceptance of intermarriage increased sharply. In 1986, 28 percent said that it was not acceptable for people to marry different races, whereas in 2010, 63 percent said that it “would be fine” with them for people to marry those outside their races.

Classical assimilation theory has frequently been used to explain increasing trends of intermarriage, arguing that intermarriage is the ultimate assimilation process of minority group members adapting into the mainstream society in terms of language, culture, and politics. When classical assimilation theory was criticized as an ethnocentric and asymmetric explanation, contemporary assimilation theory emerged. As explained in Richard Alba and Victor Nee's Remaking the American Mainstream, this theory suggests that marriages between minority and majority group members are a result of a new trend in contemporary America's celebration of multiculturalism.

This trend allows members of both minority and majority groups the opportunity to interact more frequently with one another in a two-way assimilation process that reduces social distance between groups, which in turn increases the likelihood of intermarriage. Demographic factors, such as an increase in the biracial population, rapid immigration, cohabitation, and educational upgrading, also play a key role in intermarriage trends. Zhenchao Qian and Daniel Lichter found that educational attainment reinforces intermarriage with whites for Hispanic and Asian Americans, but not for African Americans.

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