Social Economic Status and Racial Privilege Exchange in Interracial Marriage in a Multiracial Society

• In Event: 054 - Section on the Sociology of the Family Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 13. Marital Timing and Intermarriage

Abstract

Minorities outmarried to whites are often assumed to exchange their higher achieved status for an ascribed racial status. The status-caste debate in interracial marriage has provided a lively forum for discussing exchange principles in assortative mating studies in the field of family sociology. Lots of sociological research has been conducted to test for the status-caste exchange hypothesis among interracial couples yet no solid conclusion has been made. The current research aims at further testing for the validity of theoretical hypothesis of status-caste exchange with longitudinal dataset and structural equation modeling. The primary goal is achieved by meeting the following specific aims: (1) determine if there is any exchange between SES (social economic status) and racial status between minority-white couples (2) and determine whether such exchange works differently for Blacks and Latinos. The research results suggested that Blacks’ higher social economic status correlates with higher probability of marrying whites yet marrying white does not explain or correspond to greater difference in social economic status between Blacks and their spouses. However, for Latinos, higher social economic status does correlate with higher probability of marrying whites and at the same time Latinos who married whites have much higher social economic status than their white spouses. The research finding only shows evidence supporting status-caste exchange hypothesis among Latinos.

Author

• Chen Xie, University of Florida