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Brownbeauty123
Veteran Poster
Username: Brownbeauty123
Post Number: 1745
Registered: 03-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 16, 2007 - 04:35 pm: | 
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Cross-Cultural Marriage Rates Falling
By Haya El Nazzer
USA Today
(Feb. 16) - The USA's growing diversity is cooling the melting pot in at least one way: marriage across racial and ethnic lines.
The rate of marriages between blacks and whites rose between 1990 and 2000, according to a new study.
The share of Hispanics and Asians married to whites dropped between 1990 and 2000 after two decades of steady growth, new research shows.
The sheer number of immigrants who arrived last decade has made it more likely for them to marry among themselves, according to findings published this month in American Sociological Review.
Recent minority immigrants are disproportionately less educated than the native-born, earn less, do not speak English well and tend to live in segregated neighborhoods - major factors that discourage marriage outside racial or ethnic groups, says Zhenchao Qian, sociology professor at Ohio State University and co-author of the report. The researchers studied married couples between the ages of 20 to 34.
The 2000 Census is the most recent data that include enough cases to examine intermarriages at the national level, he says. "That kind of trend is likely to continue because immigrants still are coming in," Qian says. "We see immigrants as more likely to marry among themselves."
In contrast with the decline in intermarriages among whites and Asians and Hispanics, the rate of marriages between blacks and whites rose significantly from 1990 to 2000, although it continues to lag far behind those of other minorities.
The arrival of more than 11 million immigrants in the 1990s created a larger marriage pool for Hispanics and Asians, including those born here. Immigrants who were younger than 20 when they arrived and U.S.-born Hispanics and Asians - mostly the less educated - were more likely to marry among themselves in 2000 than in 1990.
The decline in the rate of intermarriages in the fastest-growing minority groups could indicate that immigrants are reinforcing their cultural identity, says Daniel Lichter, co-author of the report and a sociology professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.
If history repeats itself, the children of immigrants will be better educated, earn more and live and work in more diverse areas than their parents. That could lead to more marriages outside their groups, Qian says.
The unprecedented number of new immigrants helps explain the decline in intermarriages, says Jeffrey Pel, demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center. More than half of adult Hispanics and about three-fourths of adult Asians are immigrants. "Basically, there's a larger pool," he says.
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Nels
Veteran Poster
Username: Nels
Post Number: 794
Registered: 07-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 16, 2007 - 09:06 pm: |
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Don't you believe it for one second. Interracial marraige is a qualified equalizer, and not a point of diminishing return. The empirical data that Nazzer cites is skewed by the fact that "racial" diversity in the United States is increasing at a rate that is inversely and exponentially disproportionate to the rate of exclusionary deference that immigrants place on maintaining their cultural roots. This may be a mouthful, but it's a meritous assertion, at a minimum. |
Tonya
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 4512
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 16, 2007 - 10:56 pm: |
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So (Black) immigrants aren't niggerrrs, huh...? So that's what they hate so much. Finally got it! |
Tonya
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 4513
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 16, 2007 - 10:58 pm: |
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...Damn, that's it...is that really all it is...!?!
Wow!
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Dahomeyahosi
Regular Poster
Username: Dahomeyahosi
Post Number: 196
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, February 17, 2007 - 10:08 am: |
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I noted that the only interracial relationships mentioned involved whites and some other group. Clearly there are many other combinations that were unimportant to the author. |
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