Black-white marriages on the rise
Zhenchao Qian, sociology professor and chair, is the lead author of a new study on interracial marriages. According to Qian’s research, black-white marriages are on the rise, a sign that those racial barriers are slowly eroding, but they still lag far behind the rate of mixed-race marriages between whites and other minorities.
The study also found that the share of Hispanic newlyweds who married non-Hispanic whites grew slightly since 1980, but at a slower rate this decade than in previous years.
The share of Asians who married whites dropped. One explanation: Immigration has broadened the pool of potential spouses of the same race and ethnicity.
"If the immigration population had not increased, we would have seen more interracial marriages," Qian says.
The study, published in the October edition of the Journal of Marriage and Family, finds that in 2008, 10.7% of blacks who married in the past year married whites, compared with 3% in 1980.
Blacks who have completed higher levels of education are more likely to marry whites because they have a greater chance of interacting with them in school, the workplace and neighborhoods where they live — a fact that has been true for other groups for a while but not for blacks, Qian says.