Blurring the Marriage Market? Contemporary Patterns of Multiracial Marriage

Abstract Research on interracial marriage has only begun to incorporate the growing mixed-race population. Using the 2010–2019 pooled American Community Survey, we explore the likelihood of a range of spousal pairings relative to racial endogamy for multiracial people while accounting for group size and controls for education, age, and immigration status. A distinguishing feature of marriage for multiracial individuals is the possibility of a partial overlap in racial identification—having one component race in common with one's partner. We find that exact racial endogamy for many multiracial individuals is relatively quite high, once we adjust for group size, and that partial endogamy through overlap increases the likelihood of a union. Furthermore, partial overlap in racial identification between multiracial and monoracial partners reveals the importance of racial classification regimes determining how multiracial individuals are treated in the marriage market. We find no evidence of a general affinity among multiracial individuals who do not share racial ancestry or that multiracial individuals’ partner choices are less affected by race than the choices of monoracial individuals. These patterns have implications for the significance of established racial boundaries and the ongoing churning of racial categories, even as those categories become more ancestrally complex.