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Marital Dissolution Among Interracial Couples

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Marital Dissolution Among Interracial Couples YUANTING ZHANG Food and Drug Administration JENNIFER VAN HOOK Pennsylvania State University* Marital Dissolution Among Interracial Couples Increases in interracial marriage have been in- dramatically from less than 1% in 1970 among terpreted as reflecting reduced social distance all married couples to more than 5% in 2000. among racial and ethnic groups, but little is Children living in such families have quadrupled known about the stability of interracial mar- to more than 3 million between 1970 and 2000 riages. Using six panels of Survey of Income (Lee & Edmonston, 2005). Such changes have and Program Participation (N ¼ 23,139 mar- been interpreted as signifying the fading of racial ried couples), we found that interracial mar- boundaries in U.S. society (Qian & Lichter, riages are less stable than endogamous 2007) and as indicating immigrant structural marriages, but these findings did not hold up assimilation (Alba & Golden, 1986; Gordon, consistently. After controlling for couple char- 1964). acteristics, the risk of divorce or separation Enthusiasm about increases in the prevalence among interracial couples was similar to the of interracial marriages, however, may be damp- more-divorce-prone origin group. Although ened if such marriages are highly likely to break marital dissolution was found to be strongly up. Partially because interracial marriage remains associated with race or ethnicity, the results a relatively new phenomenon, few studies have failed to provide evidence that interracial mar- assessed the stability of interracial marriages or riage per se is associated with an elevated risk offered theoretical guidance on this issue. Exist- of marital dissolution. ing work tends to be dated and focused primarily on Black-White marriages. As a result, little is known about relative stability of such marriages Interracial marriage has long been a topic of inter- in contemporary American society (Joyner & est and controversy in American history and has Kao, 2005). Because the U.S. population has received a great deal of attention in the family grown increasingly diverse, it is important to research literature (Fu, 2006; Kalmijn, 1991; update prior research to include interracial mar- Tucker & Mitchell-Kernan, 1990; Yancey, riages involving Asians and Hispanics, especially 2007). The antimiscegenation laws in the United given that they are more likely to intermarry (with States, enacted mainly to prevent Black-White non-Hispanic Whites) than are Blacks (Qian, interracial marriages, were struck down in 1997). Also, interracial marriages involving a 1967 Supreme Court decision (Sollors, 2000). America’s newest minority groups may operate Since then interracial marriage has increased differently than those involving Blacks because of the high levels of racism in the United States directed specifically toward Blacks, which is Food and Drug Administration ([email protected]). likely to stress Black-White marriages. In the present study, we analyze the stability of interra- *Pennsylvania State University. cial marriages involving Blacks, Asians, and This article was edited by Velma McBride Murry. Hispanics over the period 1990 to 2001 by Key Words: culture, dissolution, ethnicity, interracial, mar- analyzing data from the Survey of Income and riage, race, stability. Program Participation (SIPP). Journal of Marriage and Family 71 (February 2009): 95–107 95 96 Journal of Marriage and Family BACKGROUND AND THEORY groups because of their ‘‘betrayal’’ and non- conforming behavior of ‘‘crossing the line’’ Existing work on marital dissolution among (Billingsley, 1968). This may be particularly interracial couples focused primarily on divorce salient for Black-White marriages, as Yancey within Black-White marriages (Monahan, 1970; (2007) found that social discrimination against Rankin & Maneker, 1987) or specialized popula- such couples could be especially harsh. The tions such as Hawaiians (Fu, 2006; Jones, 1996). enduring social boundaries specifically between Although one study of couples in Iowa found Blacks and Whites became apparent in the con- Black-White marriages to be more stable than tinuation of low levels of Black-White intermar- Black-Black marriages (Monahan), other studies riage and higher levels of intermarriage between concluded that interracial marriages were less sta- non-Hispanic Whites, Asians, and Hispanics, ble in Hawaii (Fu; Jones, 1996) and in the Nether- especially among those with higher levels of lands (Kalmijn, de Graaf, & Janssen, 2005). socioeconomic status (Qian & Lichter, 2007). Moreover, prior research suggested that the sta- Similarly, in their study of multiracial identifica- bility of interracial marriages differed by gender. tion among those with Black, Asian, or Hispanic On the basis of a California sample, Rankin and backgrounds, Lee and Bean (2007) found that Maneker found that Black men–White women those with Black backgrounds more consistently marriages had shorter durations compared to identified as Black and not multiracial (similar to other types of pairings. the ‘‘one-drop’’ rule as applied in the past), Primarily two theoretical frameworks have whereas those with Hispanic and, especially, guided research on the instability of interracial Asian backgrounds exhibited more flexibility marriages. The first concerns the role of homog- and choice in racial or ethnic identification and amy and the second involves ideas about ethnic were more likely to identify as multiracial. Lee convergence of divorce propensities. Consistent and Bean concluded that these patterns illustrated with the homogamy perspective, sociologists the salience of the color line that continues to have long found that people tend to date and divide Blacks from non-Blacks in U.S. society. marry someone who shares a similar cultural The homogamy perspective predicts that inter- background and social economic status and, in racial marriages will be less stable than same-race many cases, someone in the same neighborhood, marriages. Thus, Black-White marriages are ex- school, or workplace. Among the explanations pected to be more likely to divorce than either for homogamy, geographical propinquity and Black or White endogamous marriages; simi- personal preferences were found to be the two larly, Asian-White marriages are expected to be underpinning factors (Stevens, 1991). The pool more likely to divorce than either Asian or White of potential partners is determined by local demo- endogamous marriages. The homogamy perspec- graphic and geographic composition, and within tive further leads to the expectation that the stron- this pool people generally prefer someone who ger the racial boundary of the two groups is similar to them (Kalmijn, 1998; Stevens & represented in the couple, the greater the risk Swicegood, 1987). of divorce. Thus, Black-White marriages are With respect to marital stability, the basic expected to be at greater risk of divorce than assumption of the homogamy perspective is that Hispanic-White or Asian-White marriages. couples with similar characteristics have fewer An alternative to the homogamy perspective is misunderstandings, less conflict, and enjoy the ethnic divorce convergence perspective. greater support from extended family and friends. Developed by Jones (1996), the ethnic divorce Consistent with this idea, endogamous marriages convergence perspective theorizes that divorce were found to be more stable than those involving propensities of interracial couples are likely to couples who were dissimilar on socially signifi- fall between the divorce patterns of the involved cant traits (e.g., education, race or ethnicity, and racial groups. This contrasts with the homogamy religion; Bahr, 1981; Jones, 1996; Kalmijn hypothesis, which predicts higher levels of et al., 2005). Kalmijn (1998) found that interra- divorce for interracially married couples. On the cial couples in particular could face group sanc- basis of his empirical tests using Australian and tions if racial heterogamy threatened in-group Hawaiian data, Jones (1994, 1996) argued that solidarity. Indeed, interracial couples often faced divorce patterns for mixed marriages reflect the pressures in the forms of strangers’ stares and interplay of the divorce cultures of the ethnic anger, and even rejection by their own racial groups involved, instead of following the divorce Interracial Marriages and Marital Dissolution 97 culture of the dominant group. For example, he women with higher incomes (Ruggles, 1997) found that Chinese-White couple divorce rates have been more likely to divorce or separate than fell somewhere in between divorce rates of others. Finally, although having young child(ren) Chinese and White endogamous marriages. has been shown to increase marital stability, this Similarly, Kalmijn et al. (2005) reported effect often decreased as the child(ren) grew older that interracial marriage divorce rates tended (Cherlin, 1977). to fall in between the two groups in the In addition to the socioeconomic and demo- Netherlands. graphic characteristics of individuals, it is critical In the United States, Blacks have had higher to control for couple-level characteristics. The divorce rates than Whites, whereas Hispanics homogamy perspective stresses that partner dif- and Asians have had lower divorce rates (Frisbie, ferences in any socially significant characteris- Bean, & Eberstein, 1980; Sweezy & Tiefenthaler, tics—not just race—may increase the risk of 1996), although there have been important differ- divorce, and spouses in interracial
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