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- Title
Broken Boundaries or Broken Marriages? Racial Intermarriage and Divorce in the United States.
- Authors
Fu, Vincent Kang; Wolfinger, Nicholas H.
- Abstract
Objective Several recent studies have investigated the consequences of racial intermarriage for marital stability. None of these studies properly control for first-order racial differences in divorce risk, therefore failing to appropriately identify the effect of intermarriage. Our article builds on an earlier generation of studies to develop a model that appropriately identifies the consequences of crossing racial boundaries in matrimony. Methods We analyze the 1995 and 2002 National Survey of Family Growth using a parametric event-history model called a sickle model. To appropriately identify the effect of interracial marriage we use the interaction of wife's race and husband's race. Results We find elevated divorce rates for Latino/white intermarriages but not for black/white intermarriages. Seventy-two percent of endogamous Latino marriages remain intact at 15 years, but only 58 percent of Latino husband/white wife and 64 percent of white husband/ Latina wife marriages are still intact. Conclusions We have identified an important deficiency in previous studies and provide a straightforward resolution. Although higher rates of Latino/white intermarriage may indicate more porous group boundaries, the greater instability of these marriages suggests that these boundaries remain resilient.
- Subjects
UNITED States; INTERRACIAL marriage; DIVORCE; MARRIAGE of African Americans; SOCIAL support; MARRIED people; HISPANIC Americans; SOCIAL history
- Publication
Social Science Quarterly (Wiley-Blackwell), 2011, Vol 92, Issue 4, p1096
- ISSN
0038-4941
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.1540-6237.2011.00809.x