Who intermarries? Education, nativity, region, and interracial marriage, 1980 and 1990

This study examines interracial marriage among whites, African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans, using PUMS data from the 1980 and the 1990 censuses. The level of interracial marriage is related inversely to the size of the racial group and to the proportion of the racial group in each region. Demographic structure, however, does not fully explain the racial differences in interracial marriage. Hispanics and Asian Americans have higher levels of interracial marriage than African Americans, despite the greater prevalence of immigrants in the former two groups. Interracial marriage differs by educational attainment for each racial group, but spousal educational differences are similar among different types of interracial marriages. The findings suggest that racial differences in interracial marriage by educational attainment do not show that interracial marriage is an exchange of whites' racial status for minorities' higher educational attainment, but indicate racial differences in educational attainment. Finally, immigration status, an indication of acculturation, shows different effects on interracial marriage for each racial group.