Timmy Huynh Population Association of America, 2016 Paper Submission Short and Extended Abstract
Faith and Interracial Marriage: How Does Religious Affiliation Affect Rates of Interracial Marriage?
SHORT ABSTRACT Much research has analyzed the impact of various indicators of religiosity on rates of interracial marriage or dating. However, demographic microdata that includes both racial/ethnic and religious identifiers of the respondent and the respondent’s spouse are not very common. Drawing on new survey data from the Religious Landscape Study 2014, I analyze the impact of religious affiliation and unaffiliation on rates of interracial marriage. Even though the unaffiliated are less racially/ethnically diverse than the affiliated, they tend to have significantly higher rates of interracial marriage. After controlling for variables the literature has found to be highly correlated with higher rates of interracial marriage (e.g., education, age, and time of marriage), some of the difference is explained, but the difference remains statistically significant. Previous research in this area has found that the unaffiliated should not be different from the rest of the population, so discussion on future directions is also included.
EXTENDED ABSTRACT
Introduction
Most marriage research that explores demographic differences between the spouses tend to focus on the interracial, interfaith, or other aspect. However, as these types of intermarriages are on the rise among the newly-married in recent years, it becomes increasingly important to shed light on the intersections of these types of demographic differences between spouses in marriages. For example, how are interracial marriages distributed among different religious groups, and how are interfaith marriages distributed among the various racial/ethnic groups? By using new survey data from the Religious Landscape Study (RLS) 2014 from the Pew Research Center, these questions can be answered for the most recent trends. While this analysis found there to be little to no significant differences between interfaith marriage rates among the different racial and ethnic groups, there are differences in interracial marriage rates among the different religious groups. In particular, the unaffiliated have higher rates of interracial marriage than do the religiously affiliated, even after controlling for various demographics. Brief discussion of how these results compare to other similar research and of future directions is included.
Data and Methods
The data for this analysis come from the U.S. Religious Landscape Study (RLS) 2014, conducted by the Pew Research Center. This is the second time this study was conducted, and it surveys over 35,000 Americans from all 50 states over the phone. Along with the typical demographic questions asked of the respondent, a handful of questions were asked of the respondent’s spouse, including both religious
Huynh, 1 of 6 affiliated and race and ethnicity. By recoding these variables, I was able to identify respondents in both interfaith and interracial marriages. Interfaith marriages refer to marriages between two people of different religious background, while interracial marriages refer to those between two people of different race or ethnicity. For example, a Catholic person and a Protestant person who are married are not interfaith because they are both Christian, but an Orthodox person and a Buddhist person who are married are in an interfaith marriage. Similarly, a person of Hispanic origin married to anyone not of Hispanic origin is in an interracial marriage (as defined in this analysis), as is a married couple comprising a non-Hispanic white person and a non-Hispanic Asian person.
Through consultation with the literature on the demographic indicators of interracial marriage, variables on education, age, and time of marriage are also included as controls. The literature has shown that interracial marriages are more common among the highly-educated, the younger, and the new-married populations. Research on the effect of education has shown that the difference in interracial marriage rates matters most for people with some college or more versus people with high school or less education, so the demographic control for education was dichotomized for this analysis. After running analyses on both single-year by age and by time of marriage, I simplified these variables by binning them into four categories, with the same trends by single-year or by broad categories.
Finally, a series of logistic regressions were run on the likelihood of interracial marriage for both the unaffiliated and the affiliated. While the results were in the same direction and significant in all different permutations of respondent and/or respondent’s spouse being unaffiliated/affiliated (depending on the model), I have included just the or situations in this write-up for simplicity.
Findings
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the rate of interracial marriage for the unaffiliated1 (13%) is higher than the interracial marriage rate for the religiously affiliated2 % . These figures are ased o the respo de t’s religious identity, but the figures are virtually the same regardless of whether one or both spouses in the marriage are unaffiliated.) Overall, the interracial marriage rate is 9%3 among married respondents in the RLS 2014, which compares to the 8.4% that the Pew Research Center previously reported using data from the U.S. Census American Community Survey 3-year estimates for 2008-2010. Note that the ACS may be representative of all married couples, while respondents from the RLS are representative of the U.S. population and may not be directly representative of married individuals in particular. Furthermore, the difference of interracial marriage rates from the ACS 2008-2010 estimate to the RLS 2014 estimate is in line with the trend of increases in recent years and is within the margin of error of both analyses.
1 The rate of interracial marriage rounds to 13 percentage points for all the following scenarios: the respondent is u affiliated . % , o ly the respo de t is u affiliated . % , either the respo de t or the respo de t’s spouse is unaffiliated (13.03%), both the respondent and the respo de t’s spouse are u affiliated . % , a d the respo de t’s spouse is u affiliated . % . The i terra ial arriage rate rou ds to poi ts if o ly the respo de t’s spouse is u affiliated . % . 2 The rate of interracial marriage rounds to 8 points for all the following scenarios: the respondent is religiously affiliated . % , either the respo de t or the respo de t’s spouse is affiliated . % , a d the respo de t’s spouse is affiliated (8.09%). The rate of interracial marriage rounds to 7 points for when both the respondent and the respo de t’s spouse are affiliated . % . 3 Rounded to three decimal places, the figure is 8.845%.
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The difference in interracial marriage rates between religiously unaffiliated and religiously affiliated people is not necessarily due to different racial/ethnic distributions between the two groups either. As noted recently, so e of the groups that o prise the u affiliated ategory are a tually less racially diverse than the total population. Indeed, among married couples where both people are unaffiliated, non-Hispanic white respondents account for 77.9, non-Hispanic blacks are 2.2%, non-Hispanic Asians are 5.2%, non-Hispanic other/mixed are 3.9%, and Hispanics/Latinos are 9.1%. Among married couples where both people are religiously affiliated, non-Hispanic white respondents account for only 72.6%, non-Hispanic blacks are 7.5%, non-Hispanic Asians are 3.4%, non-Hispanic other/mixed are 2.6%, and Hispanics/Latinos are 12.9%. In other words, unaffiliated couples are slightly less racially diverse than religiously affiliated couples but are more likely to be in interracial marriages.
Prior research on interracial couples have shown that people who are higher-educated, are younger, and marry more recently tend to have higher rates of interracial marriages. When accounting for these factors in logistic regression models, the difference in interracial marriage rates between the unaffiliated and the religiously affiliated decreases slightly but still remains significant. (See Table 1 for the logistical regression models.) Without these demographic controls, when at least one spouse in a married couple is unaffiliated, the couple is 1.8 times more likely to be in an interracial marriage than affiliated couples, compared to 1.6 times more likely with controls. When both people in a married couple are religiously affiliated, the odds that the married couple is interracial is 36% less likely with controls (compared with 44% less likely without any controls).4
Running these analyses on several of the larger religious groups (i.e., with large enough n’s to be statistically sound) also finds those differences in interracial marriage rates to remain statistically significant after demographic controls. For example, when at least one spouse (or both) is Evangelical Protestant, mainline Protestant, historically black Protestant or Mormon, the odds are less likely the couple is interracial. If at least one spouse is Buddhist or Catholic (but not both), the odds that the married couple is interracial is still statistically significantly more likely. These analyses were also performed on married individuals identifying as Jewish, and with demographic controls, these married couples were neither more nor less likely to be in interracial couples.
The interfaith marriage rates do not differ much by race and ethnicity. Overall, the interfaith marriage rate in the RLS 2014 data is 15.1%. Broken down by race, the interfaith marriage rates are as follows: non-Hispanic whites at 14.9%, non-Hispanic blacks at 17.3%, non-Hispanic Asians at 17.8%, non-Hispanic other/mixed at 16.9%, and Latinos/Hispanics at 13.9%. These figures are all within the margins of error for their group sizes in the data.
4 The significance level of the unaffiliated/affiliated dummy variable in these logistic regression models is significant at the p<0.001 level.
It’s still statistically significant for a married couple to be more likely to be interracial when both the respondent a d the respo de t’s spouse are u affiliated, oth without o trols odds ratio of . a d with o trols odds ratio of 1.281), at the p<0.01 level.
It’s also still statisti ally sig ifi a t for a arried ouple to e less likely to i terra ial whe either the respo de t or the respo de t’s spouse is religiously affiliated, oth without o trols odds ratio of . a d with o trols (odds ratio of 0.782), at the p<0.01 level.
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Brief Discussion
Prior research on the effects or covariates of religion on interracial marriage or dating have found that there should not be any differences on interracial marriages for the religiously unaffiliated or Protestants, while Catholics were found to be likelier to be in interracial marriages. The findings in this analysis contradict these previous results. However, prior research has used data that is now almost a decade old (e.g., the 2007 Baylor Religion Survey or the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth), so trends in interracial marriage by religion may be different today than they were in the recent past.
More exploration should be done on the differences in the various datasets that analyze the intersection of religion and interracial marriage. Furthermore, similar analyses have included measures of religiosity to explain interracial marriage, such as frequency of attendance at religious services or frequency of prayer. In the next round of analyses, I will try to include these such variables in order to attempt to explain the differences in the interracial marriage rate divergences.
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Figure 1. Interracial marriage rates for the largest religious subgroups.
Unaffiliated more likely to be in interracial marriages % of interracial marriages, by religion
Unaffiliated 13%
Mainline 7 Protestant
Evangelical 7 Protestant
Historically Black 10 Protestant
Catholic 9
Total 9
Note: Interracial marriages are between a Hispanic and a non-Hispanic or between non-Hispanic spouses who come from the following different racial groups: white, black, or Asian. Other/mixed individuals are excluded from interracial marriages in this analysis. Smaller religious groups are excluded from this graphic. Source: Religious Landscape Study 2014 PEW RESEARCH CENTER
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Table 1. Logistic regression models for likelihood of interracial marriage among married respondents
Respondent or R’s spouse is Respondent or R’s spouse is religiously unaffiliated religiously affiliated Model 1A Model 1B Model 2A Model 2B Variables OR p>|z| OR p>|z| OR p>|z| OR p>|z| At least one spouse is 1.818 *** 1.581 *** unaffiliated At least one spouse is 0.679 *** 0.780 ** affiliated
Education (High school or 1.000 1.000 less) Some college or more 1.209 ** 1.215 **
Age category (18-29) 1.000 1.000
Ages 30-49 0.837 * 0.845 *
Ages 50-64 0.730 ** 0.732 ***
Ages 65+ 0.591 *** 0.587 ***
Time of marriage (married 1.000 1.000 last 10 yrs) Married 11-25 years ago 0.790 ** 0.768 ***
Married 26-50 years ago 0.534 *** 0.510 ***
Married 51+ years ago 0.358 *** 0.334 ***
Log-likelihood -4964.350 -4674.484 -5014.101 -4707.370 n 17,765 17,071 17,794 17,100
Notes: OR: Odds Ratios; *p < .05, **p<.01, ***p<.001; Reference category in parentheses
Source: Religious Landscape Study 2014
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