Marrying Out – exogamy in the United States

Here are some of the key findings:

• A record 14.6% of all new marriages in the United States in 2008 were between spouses of a different race or ethnicity from one another.
• Among all newlyweds in 2008, 9% of whites, 16% of blacks, 26% of Hispanics and 31% of Asians married someone whose race or ethnicity was different from their own.
• Gender patterns in intermarriage vary. Some 22% of all black male newlyweds in 2008 married outside their race, compared with just 9% of black female newlyweds. Among Asians, the gender pattern runs the other way. Some 40% of Asian female newlyweds married outside their race in 2008, compared with just 20% of Asian male newlyweds. Among whites and Hispanics, by contrast, there are no gender differences in intermarriage rates.
• Rates of intermarriages among newlyweds in the U.S. more than doubled between 1980 (6.7%) and 2008 (14.6%). However, different groups experienced different trends. Rates more than doubled among whites and nearly tripled among blacks. But for both Hispanics and Asians, rates were nearly identical in 2008 and 1980.
• There is a strong regional pattern to intermarriage. Among all new marriages in 2008, 22%1 in the West were interracial or interethnic, compared with 13% in both the South and Northeast and 11% in the Midwest.
• Most Americans say they approve of racial or ethnic intermarriage – not just in the abstract, but in their own families.
• More than a third of adults (35%) say they have a family member who is married to someone of a different race.

To read the full report click HERE