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Interethnic Partnering: Patterns by Birthplace, Ancestry and Indigenous Status

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Family Formation in 21st Century Australia

Abstract

Interethnic partnering, or intermarriage, is an indication of permeable social boundaries between ethnic groups. This chapter uses Australian Census data from 2011 to examine patterns of interethnic partnering by Indigenous status, birthplace, and ancestry. The Indigenous patterns are also compared to previous studies of the 2001 and 2006 censuses. The study showed increasing Indigenous intermarriage, but with a high degree of variation by region, and to a lesser extent, by education. Both birthplace and ancestry data showed gender asymmetry in the partnering patterns of several Asian groups, higher levels of intermarriage amongst longer-established groups from Anglo-Celtic countries, and a higher degree of homogamous partnership among more recent arrivals from the Middle East and Indian subcontinent. Although it is not possible to determine whether patterns among first generation migrants are due to ethnic preferences or to couple migration to Australia, second or third or greater generation individuals are more likely to intermarry. This is the case for all ethnic groups, although integration (by this measure) proceeds more quickly for some groups than for others.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Rates of black-white intermarriage in particular remain at levels below other interracial and interethnic unions, despite having increased threefold over the past 30 years (Qian and Lichter 2011).

  2. 2.

    This asymmetry is also reflected in the total number of partnered people, with nearly three times as many partnered Thai-born women as men (in the general population there are about twice as many Thai-born women as men).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Health, Arts and Design, Swinburne University, Melbourne, Australia

    Lyndon Walker

  2. School of Social Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

    Genevieve Heard

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  1. Lyndon Walker
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  2. Genevieve Heard
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Correspondence to Lyndon Walker .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Social Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Genevieve Heard

  2. School of Social Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Dharmalingam Arunachalam

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Walker, L., Heard, G. (2015). Interethnic Partnering: Patterns by Birthplace, Ancestry and Indigenous Status. In: Heard, G., Arunachalam, D. (eds) Family Formation in 21st Century Australia. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9279-0_4

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