Diverse Pathways: Race and the Incorporation of Black, White, and Arab-Origin Africans in the United States

Chapter 6. Race, Ethnicity, and Marital Incorporation

97 Chapter 6 Race, Ethnicity, and Marital Incorporation C ultural differences that affect interpersonal relationships are among the most significant barriers that immigrants encounter during the incorporation process. Unlike differences in outcomes such as occupational status and incomes, cultural differences between immigrants and natives also tend to persist for much longer. One consequence of this is that immigrants can experience increasing economic mobility but still lag behind in terms of their degree of integration into the social mainstream. Complete social integration is facilitated by the formation of viable interpersonal relationships between immigrants and natives. Few indicators capture the dynamics of such relationships as well as those related to intermarriage. As a result, the likelihood of intermarriage between immigrants and natives is considered to be a critical measure of immigrants’ structural assimilation and integration. The analysis of such marriages is also usually used to assess Gordon’s (1964) proposition that immigrants ’ integration into the structure of society is the final stage of the assimilation process. Accordingly, the most assimilated groups are expected to have the highest rates of intermarriage since such marriages reflect the fact that cultural boundaries no longer act as constraints on intergroup relations. Ethnic and racial differences are nevertheless among the major determinants of intermarriage (Lucassen and Laarman 2009; van Tubergen and Maas 2007), and this is exemplified by the wide disparity in intermarriage rates among racial and ethnic groups (Jacobs and Labov 2002; Bean et al. 2005). Latinos and 98 C h a p t e r 6 Asians, for example, have higher intermarriage rates than Blacks (Qian and Lichter 2007); however, both groups have lower intermarriage rates than Native Americans (Kalmijn 1998). These variations are generally a product of a number of influences, including, among other things, differences in the perceived attractiveness of potential spouses, based on their racial and ethnic characteristics (Lee and Edmonston 2005; Yancey 2009). Additionally, because social and economic attributes affect the formation of such marriages, it is also possible for racial and ethnic intermarriage differences to be undergirded by socioeconomic factors (Merton 1941; Fu 2001). Racial diversity among African immigrants therefore has several implications for their expected patterns of marital incorporation. The most obvious is that racial differences in marital incorporation among immigrants have been found to be consistent with the racial intermarriage patterns of the US-born (Sassler 2005; Qian and Lichter 2001). Furthermore, ethnic differences, especially between Arab and non-Arabs, are likely to create additional disparities in the speed with which cultural differences between Africans and US natives decline. Specifically, intermarriage differences can reflect variations in the social distance between US natives and specific immigrant groups (Pagnini and Morgan 1990; Rosenfeld 2002). Accordingly, Arab and non-Arab intermarriage differences can therefore be used to evaluate the extent to which cultural stereotypes of Arabs impede or facilitate interpersonal relations with US natives. If they impede interactions in the form of romantic relationships, for example, non-Arab Africans should be more likely to intermarry with US natives than Arab Africans. Differential intermarriage rates further have economic implications be­ cause they directly affect the economic welfare of immigrant families. According to Meng and Gregory (2005) intermarriage between immigrants and the USborn is positively related to family incomes. Significantly, their analysis indicates that this income premium is not observed among immigrants in endogamous marriages, that is, among immigrants who marry within their own group. As much as race and ethnicity are important for understanding marital outcomes, however, surprisingly little is known about the marital patterns of African immigrant groups or the determinants of their likelihood of intermarriage. In considering the marital incorporation processes of African immigrants, therefore, a number of issues need to be addressed. As a backdrop for the investigation of racial and ethnic differences, we first need to develop a general sense of the social dynamics of marriage in African immigrant communities. This can be achieved by reviewing the evidence from existing studies on mar­ riage and family relationships among African immigrants. Next, the possible mechanisms 99 M a r i t a l I n c o r p o r a t i o n contributing to racial differences in intermarriage between Africans and the USborn need to be articulated. For example, how is the racial hierarchy of spousal preferences of US natives likely to affect the intermarriage prospects of Black and White Africans? Are group differences in educational attainment also likely to explain intermarriage disparities...