Blacks who have completed high levels of education are more likely to marry Whites, according to a new study by the Journal of Marriage and Family to be published in October.
Zhenchao Qian, a sociology professor at Ohio University and lead author of the study on interracial marriages, said the interaction among Blacks and other races in college, workplace and neighborhoods may contribute to the increased likelihood of interracial marriages.
The study also found that Black-White marriages are more becoming common. In 2008, 10.7 percent of Blacks who married in the past year married Whites—compared to 3 percent in 1980.
However, experts said even the modern percentage of interracial marriages is very low. By comparison, nearly 34 percent of Asians married Whites in 2008, and 28 percent of Hispanics married Whites who were not Hispanics, USA Today reported.
“Blacks are still the least assimilated,” Roderick Harrison, a demographer at Howard University and the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington told USA Today. “It does suggest that the divide in this country remains between Blacks and everybody else.”
“This doesn’t imply that we’ve moved into a post-racial society,” Daniel Lichter, director of the Cornell Population Center and the study’s co-author, said. “Even though there’s been a rapid increase , it’s still very low.”
The study also found that Black men are more than likely to marry White women than Black women are to marry White men. Asians and American Indians are more likely to marry a White person than a person of their own heritage, according to the study.