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Interracial Marriage and Self-Reported Health of Whites and Blacks in the United States

Population Research and Policy Review volume 36, pages 851–870 (2017)Cite this article

Abstract

This study examines the self-reported health of 180,291 married non-Hispanic blacks and whites in interracial versus endogamous marriages. Data are from the National Health Interview Survey pooled over the period 1997–2013. The results from ordinal logistic regressions show that non-Hispanic whites intermarried with non-Hispanic blacks, non-Hispanic whites intermarried with non-Hispanic other races, and non-Hispanic white women with Hispanic husbands report significantly poorer health than their endogamous counterparts. Furthermore, non-Hispanic whites with non-Hispanic black spouses also fare worse than their interracially married peers with Hispanic spouses. In contrast, the self-reported health of married non-Hispanic blacks shows no significant difference between the interracially and the endogamously married. Our findings highlight the theoretical significance of spousal characteristics and couple-level contexts in the household production of health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center, Columbia University, 722 W. 168th Street, 4th Floor Room 410, New York, NY, 10032, USA

    Yan-Liang Yu

  2. Department of Sociology, Michigan State University, Berkey Hall, 509 E. Circle Drive Room 316, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA

    Zhenmei Zhang

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  1. Yan-Liang Yu
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Correspondence to Yan-Liang Yu.

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Yu, YL., Zhang, Z. Interracial Marriage and Self-Reported Health of Whites and Blacks in the United States. Popul Res Policy Rev 36, 851–870 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-017-9438-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-017-9438-0

Keywords

  • Interracial marriage
  • Self-reported health
  • Spousal race
  • Racial pairing