Page "Divorce" Paragraph 48

A 2008 study by Jenifer L. Bratter and Rosalind B.

King conducted on behalf of the Education Resources Information Center examined whether crossing racial boundaries increased the risk of divorce.

Using the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth ( Cycle VI ), the likelihood of divorce for interracial couples to that of same-race couples was compared.

Comparisons across marriage cohorts revealed that, overall, interracial couples have higher rates of divorce, particularly for those who married during the late 1980s.

The authors found that gender plays a significant role in interracial divorce dynamics: According to the adjusted models predicting divorce as of the 10th year of marriage, interracial marriages that are the most vulnerable involve white females and non-white males ( with the exception of white females / Hispanic white males ) relative to white / white couples.

White wife / black husband marriages are twice as likely to divorce by the 10th year of marriage compared to white / white couples, while white wife / Asian husband marriages are 59 % more likely to end in divorce compared to white / white unions.

Conversely, white men / non-white women couples show either very little or no differences in divorce rates.

Asian wife / white husband marriages show only 4 % greater likelihood of divorce by the 10th year of marriage than white / white couples.

In the case of black wife / white husband marriages, divorce by the 10th year of marriage is 44 % less likely than among white / white unions.

Intermarriages that did not cross a racial barrier, which was the case for white / Hispanic white couples, showed statistically similar likelihoods of divorcing as white / white marriages.