Correlates of marital duration and black-white intermarriage in California.

Abstract

Characteristics of black and white intermarriages in California are examined. Findings indicate that "although there are many similarities between same-race and black-white intermarriages, marriages which involve black husbands and white wives differ in several respects from other types. Not only are they shorter in duration of marriage; they have fewer children or none at all; spouses rank relatively high in education...[and] they involve relatively few teenage marriages.... In addition, when black husbands are married to white wives, they are less likely than husbands in other marriages to file for divorce, leaving white wives to take that initiative, wives who tend to have slightly higher educational levels than their black husbands." The data are from a 10 percent sample of all marriages in 1977.