The last decade has marked a decline in interracial marriages. Why is this?
By Melissa Noble — Written on Jun 07, 2010
Recently released new statistics hint that interracial marriages aren't increasing as healthily as they once did. In fact, the latest census reports that in the last 10 years interracial marriages have only increased by 20 percent, as opposed to the shockingly high 65 percent increase in the 1990s. Yet, one mixed racial pairing still enjoying a healthy increase? Whites marrying blacks. As a matter of fact, an African-American and Caucasian pairing is now three times as likely as it was in 1980. Interracial Romance: Is Love Colorblind?
However, the same can't be said for Asian and Hispanic populations, which have both experienced significant declines since 2000. While still technically on the rise, those in both communities are twice or three times as likely to marry one another then they were 10 years ago.
Can these numbers be chalked up to coincidence or is there something more big picture going on?
Daniel Lichter, a professor of sociology and public policy at Cornell University guesses that immigration restrictions have caused more romances between American-born and homeland-born minorities. Also, he ventures to guess that recent immigration backlash (Arizona, Sept. 11) has created some animosity between whites and minorities. Interracial Dating: Adventurous?
Dwindling numbers aside, one can still expect that our children will know a world a lot less black and white then ours. The Census Bureau estimates that biracial citizens will represent a majority of the U.S. population in the next fifty years.