Changing Patterns of Interracial Marriage in a Multiracial Society essay
Using 1980 Census and 2008 American Community Survey data, Lichter (2011) traces the current tendencies in the institute of in interracial marriage and comes to the conclusion that intermarriages with Whites has significantly increased in their number in recent years, especially among Blacks (increased by 3 times). On a whole, in 2008, 14,6% of weddings in the U.S. were between people of different racial and ethnic groups, which six times exceeds the indicators of 1960. According to the Pew Research Center, in 1961, when President Obama was born, there was less than one case of interracial marriage per thousand; by 1980 this indicator increased to 1:180, and in 2008 it already made 1:60. Such tendencies give grounds to suggest the declining social distance between racial and ethnic groups within the multicultural American society.
On a historical level, this could be explained by the essence of the USA as a melting pot at its foundation, with further abolition of slavery, opening of borders and adoption of democracy and tolerance principle of the constitutional level, which laid foundations for recent shifts in the minds of American citizens. On a macro level, the sudden increase is partly due to the huge wave of immigrants from Latin America and Asia, explained by the need of the USA in cheap labor force and migration policy of the previous decades, as well as breaking of cultural taboos which is now widely promoted through mass media by the institution of censorship, for instance, and finally leads to absolute recognition of equality of different races in the mentality of the multicultural nation.
Thus, the results of public surveys show that 43% of the US population consider interracial unions beneficial for social development, and 44% see no difference between mixed marriages and intra-racial one, while in 1986 the situation was totally different: 28% of Americans believed that interracial marriages were totally unacceptable, 37% treated them with tolerance, but would not wish to enter into such a marriage, and only 33% said that the union between representatives of different races was acceptable for anyone.
At the same time, the analysis of the micro-level effects of current changes in the interracial marriage patterns shows that these changes in the institute of marriage significantly influence other institutes being linked to economy, social welfare and education inside newly formed status groups. Thus, the most well-situated are the couples in which one spouse is White and the other one has Asian origin: their average annual income makes $70,952; besides the income in mixed families is usually higher if it is husband who is Asian (while this figure makes $60,000in white couples, and $62,000 in purely Asian families). The possible reason for that is because mixed families show generally higher level of education, as 50% of Whites married to Asians have a college diploma, while among white couples one of the spouses has a degree in only 30% of cases. Thus, interracial marriages demonstrate stable effect on social development.
Still, according to Lichter (2011), racial boundaries will not fully disappear in the nearest future. This limiting factor could be explained by the influence of such social events as 9/11, which led to the worsening of attitude toward immigrants, and the sharpening of situation in connection with the adoption of the new law on immigration in Arizona.
