Blurred Racial Boundaries or Shared Racial Identity? Race and Partnership among Multiracials and Monoracials

• In Event: 466 - Regular Session. Multi-Racial Classification/Identity

Abstract

The increasing rates of intermarriage and a growing multiracial population are often interpreted as a signal of declining social distance between groups. While a sharp racial divide between blacks and other groups in the United States remains, in both the academic literature and the popular imagination, multiracials are seen as particularly important in blurring racial boundaries and bridging racial difference. Using a social boundary perspective that emphasizes the role of multiracials as a group that challenges notions of sharply differentiated boundaries between races, this study examines attitudes about the importance of race in partnership and the likelihood of having a black marital or cohabiting partner among multiracial and monoracial people. Results show that multiracials are less likely than their monoracial counterparts to believe that race is important for successful relationships, and believing that race is important for relationships decreases the odds of having a black partner for all respondents. Although multiracials had higher odds of ever having a black marital or cohabiting partner compared to their non-black monoracial counterparts, subsequent analyses show that black multiracials largely drove this difference. The results suggest the importance of clarifying and evaluating boundary dynamics in partnership and the continued importance of shared racial identity in this domain, even in the context of a growing multiracial population.

Author

• Krystale Littlejohn, Occidental College