Guess Who's Been Coming to Dinner? Trends in Interracial Marriage over the 20th Century

Roland G. Fryer

Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2007, vol. 21, issue 2, 71-90

Abstract: This paper studies marriages across black, white, and Asian racial lines. Marrying across racial lines is a rare event, even today. Interracial marriages account for approximately 1 percent of white marriages, 5 percent of black marriages, and 14 percent of Asian marriages. Following a brief history of the regulation of race and romance in America, I analyze interracial marriage using census data from 1880-2000, uncovering a rich set of cross-section and time-series patterns. I investigate the extent to which three different theories of interracial marriage can account for the patterns discovered. After also testing a social exchange theory and a search model, I find the data are most consistent with a Becker-style marriage market model in which objective criteria of a potential spouse, their race, and the social price of intermarriage are central.

Date: 2007
Note: DOI: 10.1257/jep.21.2.71
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (76)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.21.2.71 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:jecper:v:21:y:2007:i:2:p:71-90

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Perspectives is currently edited by Enrico Moretti

More articles in Journal of Economic Perspectives from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().