Changes in American Attitudes Toward Intermarriage With Blacks, Asians, Hispanics, and Whites: A Comparative Perspective

Abstract

This study compares changes in American attitudes toward intermarriage with Blacks, Asians, Hispanics, and Whites in the twenty-first century simultaneously, using nationally representative samples from General Social Surveys 2000–2018. Our trend analyses reveal that, since 2000, nearly two thirds or more of Americans have strongly favored, favored, or held a neutral stance on, intermarriage with Blacks, Asians, and Hispanics, but favorable attitudes toward intermarriage with non-Hispanic Whites have either been generally steady or even slightly declined. Our generalized linear ordinal logistic regression analyses show that either including or excluding control variables, American attitudes have become generally more supportive of intermarriage with Blacks since 2002, with Asians since 2008, and with Hispanics since 2010, but have witnessed insignificant undulating changes in support for intermarriage with non-Hispanic Whites in the twenty-first century. The findings have significant implications for social progress and inter-group relations, hierarchies, and distances in the United States.

Keywords:

• American attitudes
• comparative perspective
• intermarriage
• trends
• twenty-first century

Acknowledgments

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 114th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association in New York, August 10–13, 2019. We greatly appreciate the highly constructive comments of the two anonymous reviewers of Marriage & Family Review.