Divergent Pathways to Assimilation? Local Marriage Markets and Intermarriage Among U.S. Hispanics

• Author: Daniel T. Lichter,Dmitry Tumin,Zhenchao Qian
• Published date: 01 February 2018
• Date: 01 February 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12423

Z Q Brown University

D T. L Cornell University∗

D T The Ohio State University∗∗

Divergent Pathways to Assimilation? Local

Marriage Markets and Intermarriage Among

U.S. Hispanics

The growing diversity of the U.S. popu-

lation raises questions about integration

among America’s fastest growing minority

population—Hispanics. The canonical view is

that intermarriage with the native-born White

population represents a pathway to assimilation

that varies over geographic space in response

to uneven marital opportunities. Using data on

past-year marriage from the 2009–2014 Ameri-

can Community Survey,the authors demonstrate

high rates of intermarriage among Hispan-

ics. The analyses identify whether Hispanics

marry coethnics, non-co-ethnic Hispanics,

non-Hispanic Whites, non-Hispanic Blacks, or

other minorities. The authors highlight variation

by race, nativity, and socioeconomic status and

reveal that Hispanics living in new immigrant

Department of Sociology, BrownUniversity, Box 1916, 108

George Street, Providence, RI 02912

(Zhenchao_Qian@brown.edu).

∗Departments of Policy Analysis and Management and

Sociology, Cornell University, 2314 MVR, Ithaca, NY

14853.

∗∗Department of Pediatrics, The Ohio State University, 700

Children’s Dr.,Columbus, OH 43205.

This article was edited by Pamela J. Smock.

Key Words: assimilation, Hispanics, immigration, integra-

tion, mate selection.

destinations are more likely to intermarry than

those living in traditional Hispanic gateways.

Indeed, the higher out-marriage in new destina-

tions disappears when the demographic context

of reception is taken into account. The analysis

underscores that patterns of marital assimila-

tion among Hispanics are neither monolithic

nor expressed uniformly across geographic

space.

The number and rate of interracial marriages

have increased rapidly in the United States since

the 1970s (Wang, 2012). Much of this growth

reects high rates of intermarriage among Amer-

ica’s fastest-growing immigrant populations,

including Hispanics. Yet during the past decade,

rates of intermarriage between Hispanics and

Whites have stalled or reversed (Qian & Lichter,

2007). Declines in intermarriage rates are in part

a result of the growing numbers of Hispanics

and other ethnoracial minorities—both native

born and foreign born—in the United States.

Growing ethnoracial diversity has provided

opportunities for ethnoracial minorities to marry

within their own pan-ethnic group or with other

minorities rather than only “marrying out” to

Whites (Qian, Glick, & Batson, 2012). Newly

emerging patterns of intermarriage challenge the

single path put forward by classical assimilation

Journal of Marriage and Family 80 (February 2018): 271–288 271

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12423

272 Journal of Marriage and Family

theory and instead suggest highly segmented

trajectories of integration among America’s eth-

noracial minorities, including Hispanics (Alba

& Nee, 2003).

Assimilation also occurs “in place” (Waters&

Pinceau, 2016). Intermarriage rates presumably

respond unevenly to local-area marriage market

conditions, such as the numerical availability

of Hispanics, Whites, and other ethnoracial

minorities (Campbell & Martin, 2016; Choi &

Tienda, 2017). In recent decades, Hispanics have

become more geographically dispersed across

the United States, relocating from traditional

immigrant gateway cities to new metropolitan

areas in which shares of Hispanic coethnics

often are numerically or proportionately small.

The diffusion of Hispanics into new destina-

tions provides evidence of spatial assimilation

(Waters & Pinceau, 2016). The geographic

spread of Hispanics also presents new oppor-

tunities for marital assimilation, which may be

expressed in diverse forms. To be sure, the grow-

ing exposure of Hispanics to potential partners

with different ethnoracial backgrounds provides

a necessary yet insufcient condition for inter-

group social interaction, friendship, intimacy,

and marriage. It remains unclear, however,

whether the burgeoning Hispanic population

now living in so-called “new destinations”

increasingly intermarry with people of different

ethnoracial backgrounds when compared with

Hispanics living in traditional gateways, where

opportunities to marry coethnics who share

common cultures are presumably greatest.

In this article, we document highly seg-

mented patterns of Hispanic intermarriage in

traditional gateways and new destinations using

data on past-year marriages from the 2009–2014

rounds of the American Community Survey.

Our study has two main objectives. First, we

highlight national patterns of heterogeneity in

Hispanic intermarriage and demonstrate that

marital assimilation takes multiple paths. We

update trends in Hispanic intermarriage with

non-Hispanic Whites (Lichter, Brown, Qian,

& Carmalt, 2007) but also extend previous

studies by considering intermarriage with other

Hispanic coethnics (native or immigrant gen-

erations) and other racial minorities, including

non-Hispanic Blacks. Second, we explore

whether patterns of Hispanic intermarriage

adhere to canonical theories of spatial assimi-

lation, which argue that the geographic spread

of Hispanics to new destinations will enlarge

demographic opportunities for intermarriage

with Whites or other ethnoracial minority pop-

ulations. Here we pay attention to local-area

opportunities and constraints on intermarriage,

taking into account metropolitan racial diversity,

residential segregation, and income inequality.

B

Diversity and Intermarriage

Classical assimilation theory is commonly used

to explain the incorporation of ethnoracial and

immigrant populations over time into Ameri-

can society (Gordon, 1964). Increasing rates of

intermarriage, for example, suggest that immi-

grant minorities have adopted the cultural pat-

terns of the majority population, such as its

language and customs, and that minority popula-

tions have become integrated,both economically

and politically, into mainstream society (Waters

& Pinceau, 2016). For example, European immi-

grants at the turn of the 20th century were

ethnically, culturally, and economically diverse.

After a generation or two, group differences in

education and labor market opportunities nar-

rowed, and language and residential barriers

were reduced or eliminated among different

national origin groups (Lieberson, 1980; Pagnini

& Morgan, 1990). Consequently, social and cul-

tural boundaries across European ethnic groups

weakened and interethnic marriages with White

natives became commonplace as legal restric-

tions on immigration stemmed the ow of new

immigrants from Europe.

For recent immigrant groups, including His-

panics who arrived during a period of substantial

immigration, the prospect of intermarriage with

majority native-born Whites has become much

less certain. The rapid growth of America’s

Hispanic population may have reinforced dis-

tinctive cultural traditions, increased group iden-

tity and solidarity, and fostered greater marital

endogamy (Jiménez, 2008). A growing demo-

graphic supply of potential coethnic partners

also means that many native-born Hispanics

now marry immigrants of the same race and

ethnicity rather than White partners (Lichter,

Carmalt, & Qian, 2011). In this respect, the slow-

down in intermarriage with Whites may suggest

a demographic pause in immigrant integration

and incorporation. Classical assimilation the-

ory is arguably ethnocentric, sometimes wrongly

assuming a one-way pathway of incorporation