Assimilating Blackness?: Multiple-Race Identification and African American Mate Selection |
Assimilating Blackness?: Multiple-Race Identification and African American Mate Selection
Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association
Hilton San Francisco & Renaissance Parc 55 Hotel
San Francisco, CA
2004-08-14
23 pages
Jenifer L. Bratter, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Associate Director of the Institute for Urban Research
Rice University
I investigate the influence of multiracial identification on assortative mating by race for the African American population. Using 2000 1 percent Public Use Microdata File of the U.S. Census, I compare mate selection patterns of the single race non-Hispanic Black population to the multiple race population whose selected “Black” at least once. I employ multinomial logistic regression models to explore how likely a respondent selects Black (single race) spouses compared to non-Hispanic Whites and Multiracial Blacks. The results show Black persons who selected at least one other race are more likely than their single race counterparts to have White spouses, they are far more likely to have multiracial spouses. These analyses also show that neither of these tendencies are explained by other identity choices such as alternative races or ancestry responses, structural assimilation of the multiracial population, or regional location near other interracial couples. These results indicate that a “Black” identity is still salient in the mate selection of multiracial Blacks. Although some marital assimilation is occurring , multiracial persons appear to engage in more marital homogamy with other multiracial persons.
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Tags: Jenifer Bratter, Jenifer L. Bratter, PUMS