The Washington Post featured an article this morning about ethnic dating patterns, primarily those in the Asian and South Asian American communities. At first I assumed, “here we go again, another hackneyed piece about arranged marriages or something.” While there were a few clichés in the article, it did feature an intriguing revelation (to me at least). 2nd generation South Asian Americans (like some other ethnic groups), are increasingly marrying within their race. The magnitude of the trend was somewhat shocking to me since South Asian Americans are better assimilated than our European counterparts, and truly homogeneous ethnic enclaves which would foster such trends are very rare in the U.S. I thought for sure there would be a minor slope in the opposite direction:
The number of native- and foreign-born people marrying outside their race fell from 27 to 20 percent for Hispanics and 42 to 33 percent for Asians from 1990 to 2000, according to Ohio State University sociologist Zhenchao Qian, who co-authored a study on the subject. The downward trend continued through last year, Qian said.
“The immigrant population fundamentally changes the pool of potential partners for Asians and Hispanics. It expands the number and reinforces the culture, which means the second generation . . . is more likely to marry people of their own ethnicity,” said Daniel T. Lichter, a sociologist at Cornell University.
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Increasingly, singles are turning to a growing number of niche dating sites on the Internet, such as http://Shaadi.com and http://Persiansingles.com. [Link]
A recent book titled Inheriting the City: The Children of Immigrants Come of Age also tracks the dating and marriage patterns of 1.5 and 2nd generation South Asian Americans and finds similar results:
Researchers spent a decade following 3,300 children of immigrants in the New York region as they navigated adulthood, which led to a study published last year called “Inheriting the City: The Children of Immigrants Come of Age.” They followed both the “second generation” children born in the United States and the “1.5 generation” — children of immigrants who came as youngsters — who were Dominican, Chinese, Russian Jews, South Americans and West Indians.
Researchers found that their subjects were constantly struggling with the desire to be open to people of all backgrounds vs. family expectations, and their own desires to sustain their culture. Most paired with others who shared similar racial or language backgrounds. [Link]
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p>Reading about how these young men and women are struggling between a desire to exhibit their openness vs. family expectations seems like a whiny sob story after reading Ennis post earlier today, but I’m sure many of us reading this can relate to being torn between the two, including myself:
“People grow up the entire time rebelling to our parents, doing everything we could to fit in and spending the majority of our time running away from the traditions and our heritage,” said Bhavna Pandit, a political consultant of Indian descent who lives in the District. “Now I’m 29 years old, and I actually care about this stuff.” Like many women in the Washington area, she says it’s difficult to find a nice guy. And because she’s looking for an Indian man, it’s harder — they are in short supply in the Capitol Hill circles she runs in. [Link]
I blame the Obama administration which has been WAY too slow in vetting people to fill positions. They never responded to my change.gov application by the way. Well, as I tweeted via our Twitter account yesterday, this song will be hugely popular at desi weddings for the next decade, especially if the trend mentioned in this article holds true.
When I was really young I never imagined I would marry a brown girl… Weirdly the older I get, the more likely it seems =$
I can’t imagine marrying anyone other than a desi girl. Then again I am just tired of complications, confusions, being the outsider etc.. I want to belong in my community.
Bush bitch, after wedding, asks ‘Eddie, Where is my half?’. The masala biwi never asks for the half, since she wants to control the whole. Desi men do not want to loose their halfs. Desi women dont like to venture more money for more bad sex. If you want more romance in life, watch more Bollywood movies. Want more spice, add garam masala. It works out OK. Then why laphada ?
Much of it I think is to do with desi’s work environment too. Starting work early and finishing late knackers you, and leaves little or no energy to play the crazy dating game, thus leaving introductions to be made by the elders (and that is half the battle right?). or as the article from the post states, people then go speed dates or internet dating. (Which at one time could be seen as desperate, but not anymore).
Marrying someone of your own race, religion is just meant to be easier.
So now Shaadi.com gets counted as a ‘niche’ dating site!?
And frankly, living in New york you would think that everybody dates outside their race. I have seen pretty much all racial combinations here.
dont disagree with the conclusion. marrying out is the way to go unless one’s in some immigrant ghetto but even when coupling out, it is easier [strokes his long grey beard] if both participants have some idea of immigrant experience i.e. 1st gen – 4th gen is tres tough. one side just will not get the other side – and the families will neer get along [families are just as important to non-desis, little frogsters].
Pardon my pedantism, but their -> there (last sentence, first para) and to -> too (first sentence, last para).
there’s more than meets the eye here.
While there were a few cliches in the article, it did feature an intriguing revelation (to me at least). 2nd generation South Asian Americans (like some other ethnic groups), are increasingly marrying within their race.
i think we need to parse this data little closer. the thing with indian americans is that ~90% are immigrants, so when you aggregate immigrant + native born, you basically get the picture for immigrants. here is a analysis of 2000 census data i’ve linked to before:
% of indian american men born or raised in the USA who marry indian 56.7 other asian 2.8 white 31.3 black 0.8 latino 5.8 multiracial/other 2.7
% of indian american women born or raised in the USA who marry indian 54.2 other asian 2.0 white 36.3 black 2.8 latino 2.7 multiracial/other 1.9
% of indian american men who marry indian 91.9 other asian 0.9 white 5.5 black 0.5 latino 0.8 multiracial/other 0.4
% of indian american women who marry indian 93.6 other asian 0.7 white 4.3 black 0.5 latino 0.4 multiracial/other 0.5
why the disparity? because the indian american community, especially in the prime marrying years, is an immigrant one, not an ABD or even american raised, one. though i’m sure correcting for the rise in number of immigrants in some groups you’ll see somewhat more endogamy, this is really a story more of mass immigration in the period between 1965 and the present, and especially the huge years of the past 20 years, which have totally transformed asian and latino america.
the data from indian americans and intermarriage i saw from the 1980 census while researching this topic in the late 90s was two-fold
1) higher intermarriage rates (in the range of 10-15%) 2) a bias toward men outmarrying far more than women
i think that’s a function of what the indian american community in 1980 was.
7 · C’est moi said
Desi grammarian, we should write the comma sutra together. A/S/L?
The survey was carried out in NY wasn’t it? What about the rest of the US? I live in California and I’ve come across a couple of East-Asian mean who are really upset about the fact that “their” women prefer white guys. It seems to me that northern California Indians prefer Indian, wheras southern California are more likley to date outside of race.
As an aside, in UK, in my experience, in nearly every Punjabi family I know in UK, at least one of the kids is married to a non-Indian. However, almost every Indian under 40 was born in the UK. Mass immigration from India ended in the late 60s/early 70s. UK Indians are nothing like USA Indians…
What about the rest of the US? I live in California and I’ve come across a couple of East-Asian mean who are really upset about the fact that “their” women prefer white guys.
the data i linked to suggests that this is in large part (though not exclusively) a function of immigration. the gap is much smaller among the native born.
the interracial marriage rates in the UK: People from South Asian backgrounds were the least likely of the minority ethnic groups to be married to someone from a different ethnic group. Only 6 per cent of Indians, 4 per cent of Pakistanis, and 3 per cent of Bangladeshis had married someone outside the Asian group. As well as cultural and racial differences, people from South Asian backgrounds generally have different religions to people from other ethnic groups which may explain their relatively low inter-marriage rate. People who described their ethnicity as ‘Other Asian’ were more likely to have married a non-Asian person (18 per cent).
brownz in the UK are keeping the race pure!
i never took shaadi.com seriously. i thought it was just like arranging your own marriage. but then again if u are “getting old” and the American dating system isnt working for you, its better than letting your parents choose.
Why is Shaadi.com better than letting your parents choose? Pray tell.
i know three guys who’ve married desi via desi matchmaking sites. incidentally, two of these guys are of the same religious sub-community – and they both net-dated the same person before the balance tilted in favor of one. another guy shared his thoughts quite candidly that the biggest difference between desi matchmaking sites and the rest is the focus on getting married. he was not interested in screwing around, living together, testing the waters etc. so a desi site was the best way for him to go. he met someone equally no-nonsense. this is the kind of thing that is hard to replicate outside of one’s culture/ethnicity. good luck.
on a side note – what used to creep me out was the appearance of such shaadi.com, indianmatrimony.com ads on mainstream canadian newspapers. hunhh! is someone logging my activity on the desipr0n sites before i come on over to g&m. egad! then i cchanced onto the google adword program and realized that desi sites are throwing a lot of money into adwords. they just figure really high in the general site matches and are throwing a really wide net.
I’ve seen data that suggests that Americans in general are increasingly more likely to marry within education level and culture more broadly. In my experience, it seems that broad cultural signifiers (college/no college, hipster/working class) dominate how social groups–and marriages by extension–are generated.
This interracial mix is also much lower compared to some historical trends. During the early years of the Raj (before English women were shipped out), marriage between Europeans and Indians was common. In Britain, Indian naval men and scholars took up British wives from the 17th through 19th century.
Isn’t the New York region only a very biased location considering the large pool of globalized and well connected population ?
Following up on razib’s comment@8,
Assuming prime marriage yrs being 25-35. For this to fall in the period 1990-2000, the immigrant parents should have had their kids between 1955-1975. But wouldn’t NY region be a biased one since there is more likelihood that the children themselves are most likely to have not born in America if their parents have immigrated to this region.
one side just will not get the other side – and the families will neer get along [families are just as important to non-desis, little frogsters].
Interesting point. Apart from the Clinton blip 1990-2000 was the resurgence of conservatism. How much the willingness of the “other race” marry outside their race affect the conclusion made by these statistics ?
15 · Mihir said
It is really true too. As the caste system is fading on comes the new educational levels, which allows some to look down on others.
Pray tell.
What a silly thing to be praying over.
razib, I would guess without knowing so that there are problems with the data because I’d spotted this trend in my community (marriages of 2nd generation in the 80s – mostly with White people vs. marriages of 2nd generation people now in the same Hindu community from a particular state in india- mostly to other brown people but not necessarily same ethnicity or less frequently to east asians or white people). This makes sense with the pay that race/power has changed in the U.S. because 2nd generation South Asians (at least non-Muslim ones) can join the political/media elite in the more race aware multicultural elite (i.e. Someone will eventually write a book like “How the Irish Became White” that will document how White supremacy was replaced by a more multicultural elite thing).
12 · fallen jhumki said
Unless your parents put up a profile without you knowing about it…
Amongst my wide group of Indian friends at home (Australia), there is a common thread:
ALL the girls who have married, have married non-desis. Australians, Italians, Maltese, Greeks, one African-American. One has married an Anglo-Indian (who is pretty Australianised).
One of the boys has married a Greek-Australian girl. The rest have all married Indian: some ‘arranged’ with girls from India, some via shaadi, some love marriages. Some of the arranged ones haven’t worked out.
Growing up, none of us wanted to marry Indians because, well, it would be marrying people we’d grown up with as brothers and sisters. Perhaps now that there’s a greater pool of NRIs available, it gives people more marriage options.
% of indian american women born or raised in the USA who marry
black 2.8
My eyes have suddenly been opened to a whole new world…one where i have a billion brothers and sisters!
random connections between hardkaur, lingams and related scenes from rocknrolla. yenjoy. imo the best parts of the movie.
Unless your parents put up a profile without you knowing about it…
That really sucks…and in my case I can’t seem to prevent them from doing this partially b/c I feel guilty that I’m not married yet (I know there is no reason to feel this way, but I still have this guilt) and can’t really tell them what’s going on with my dating life… life is so much more complex when you can’t tell your parents important things about yourself and yet, b/c of their culture, they feel the NEED to arrange all the important elements of life for you —-
PS writes: >>life is so much more complex
Finally, someone who hits the nail on the head.
You folks have these issues because you have tipped over what is known as the “Paradox of Complex systems”. People start with a simple system, and then slowly start to make improvements on it by tweaking it bit by bit. Time goes by, and before you know it, the system is so complex and the expectations so great that it has reached the point of diminishing returns. Slowly people abandon it, going back to an earlier “simpler” system with reduced expectations.
M. Nam
28 · PS said
Sometimes it’s amazing what they know without you saying anything to them.
“so complex and the expectations so great that it has reached the point of diminishing returns”
Expectations can kill you. I’ve never understood my desi brethren’s ability to put marriage before attraction. Some say well ‘attaction doesn’t last’. Yes but the memory does. Otherwise why would we bother to put butter and sugar in anything. Just plain old unflavored cardboard would suffice.
Sepia suggests pineapple juice, m’dear. Fewer calories and more fun.
I’ve seen data that suggests that Americans in general are increasingly more likely to marry within education level and culture more broadly.
education, yes, culture, no. the % of interracial & interreligious marriages are increasing as a % of total marriages (the plural majority of interracial kids today are still black-white). this is about a specific subgroup within the population.
Assuming prime marriage yrs being 25-35. For this to fall in the period 1990-2000, the immigrant parents should have had their kids between 1955-1975. But wouldn’t NY region be a biased one since there is more likelihood that the children themselves are most likely to have not born in America if their parents have immigrated to this region.
just to clear, the census data is based on the american community survey (drawn from the long form). this is a huge sample. issues of representativeness aren’t as much of an issue with the census. yes, i know some groups are undercounted, etc., but these are on the margins.
p.s. not to be a nerd, but this really is the sort of thing where you should be cautious about your personal experience, since people tend to have biased social networks.
What are the benefits of marriage in today’s world versus shacking up or whatever?
Aren’t they mostly cultural/communal in nature? So it doesn’t make sense that South Asians are more likely to marry other South Asians?
obama is where he is because of michelle. it brought him credibility. bill clinton did the same via hillary for the same reason. needless to say, the spouses have bothe benefited tremendously themselves through their respective unions.
talk amongst yourselves.
[strokes long beard slowly, takes a contemplative sip from the grey mug with the chipped handle and does not look up when a crow goes roo-roo from the old maple tree with the massive fungal growth at the height of a lumberjack’s chin]
34 · khoofia said
well, duh!
Here is a problem I run into.
I am not the typical “Indian” guy, so I turn off alot of Indian women and the Indian women I would most likely get along with, dont go out with Indian guy’s because they are not the normal “Indian” woman. So, I am most likely going to marry a woman that is not Indian.
It is a tricky situation because the 2 types of Indian’s that would get along with each other never meet because we have so many other options.
And why are white people doing research on the probability of them banging a colored? Like they dont already have enough options.
36 · ShallowThinker said
You are so cool.
36 · ShallowThinker said
What does this mean? I am not even referring to the morass of mangled, or is it non-typical, spelling and punctuation, just WTF this even means.
34 · khoofia said
Yeah, within the cultural context of American culture, it’s beneficial for a male leader to have a spouse of the opposite sex (…presumably of the same race/ethnicity too … wonders if Obama was married Hilary, how that would alter his support..or if Michelle O was with Billy, etc.)
There’s cultural advantage to being married, where you are looked upon as more responsible, normal, whatever… this is probably less important now than ever but it still has some significance, at least for males in the professional realm…
Don’t think it helps women with professional aspirations in the same way though.
So that’s why my cousin is hitting on me.
40 · AV said
Maeby she just likes the way they think.
Bluth Bananas said
Maeby: Okay, so I printed the fake airline ticket from my computer. If my parents miss this, I really might go to South America. George Michael: That says Portugal. Maeby: That’s right.
Uncanny
What part of my comment is making people mad? I stated that I am not “Typical” and people start crapping in their hands and start throwing it at me.
Typical: Combining or exhibiting the essential characteristics of a group.
So I am stating that I dont exhibit the characteristics of a group.
I am a atheist that hates Indian movies, music and all types of Indian dance I dont drink, which makes me weird for Punjabis. My favorite bands range from Metallica, Rammstein, Led Zeppelin, and Bruce Springsteen. I am a very private person that hates large gatherings of people and Indians love those types of events.
There are other things, but all I was trying to say is that alot of Indian woman hate these things about me. I am not saying this makes me better than you.
I love all the things you hate 😉
Except, Razib, that nationally representative surveys don’t necessarily provide a random sample of subgroups if the subgroup is not distributed in the same fashion as the broader population.
California is around 11% of the American population. Let’s say, for arguments sake, that 1/3rd the desi population in America live there. This means that desis from CA are under-represented in a national sample, while desis from states with fewer desis, like LA, are over-represented. This creates bias because desis who live in CA and those who live in LA are very different, so our subsample of desis in the national survey is biased. This is why Latino surveys, for example, are based on a different sample frame, one representative of the community rather than the nation as a whole.
We can continue this over email since it’s a very geeky point, but it is an important one.
43 · ShallowThinker said
i think they thought you were bragging about penis size
ST…Sometimes it helps to be clear what you want. But there are cases like Captain Mullaney too who married an Indian-American woman – Dr. Sheshamani :
From the NYT article :
Well I just looked at my penis and I guess I am more “Indian” than I originally thought. JAI HO!
47 · ShallowThinker said
It happens..for e.g if you have seen the movie Shawshank Redemption and if both of them have very strong, divergent opinions abt big issues then things can call fall apart too…even after marriage
ennis, fair point. i’ll check the methodology in the link i posted….
Razib,
I’m not entirely convinced that it is largely immigration. The study mentioned in the article compared marriage rates between 1990 and 2000. Immigration rates were very stable during the period from 1990 to 2000. Per country visa caps have not been changed since 1990. If immigration rates were relatively stable (note they have been far less table from 2000 to present) over the period, I do not think immigration alone can explain the change in inter-marriage rates.
Some more specifics:
Immediate relatives (Spouses of US citizens and parents of US citizens over 21) are exempt from the cap. However among Indians, immediate relatives make up a relatively small percentage of immigrants (around a quarter of Indian immigrants) and are also somewhat skewed towards parents. Parents have a negligible impact on marriage rates.
Less than forty percent of immigrants are between the ages of 20-34 (presumably prime marriage age). Breakdown on how many of these people immigrated at a young age is unclear.
75% of immigrants are married. This is likely skewed due to immigration policy favoring married people with the exception of children being petitioned by parents.
Interestingly, a quarter of Indian immigrants are of limited English proficiency. Likely those people will marry other desis, but this is also probably skewed towards the older generation petitioned by their parents.
20% of Indian immigrants were born outside of the desh (Trinidad, England, Fiji, etc.) This raises some cultural questions.
All of the studies I see are unclear. The census distinguishes between native born and foreign born. It does not pay attention to citizenship status. The immigration service numbers distinguish between citizens, non-immigrants (holders of temporary visas – student visa, tourist visa, H1b visas etc.), and immigrants (green card holders and basically everyone else). Other studies mix the terms up combining non-immigrants and immigrants or calling naturalized citizens immigrants. It makes getting a clear picture difficult.
Still generally, I’m not entirely convinced that there wasn’t a change in attitude in the 1990 to 2000 period. The rise of matrimony websites in that period must have had some effect. I’m not sure what though.