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Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics pp 1–19Cite as

Interethnic Marriages

Abstract

For many years, interethnic marriages have been used as a measure of social distance between groups. For the case of immigrants, interethnic marriage has even been called the “final stage” of assimilation (Gordon 1964). This chapter presents the theoretical reasons why intermarriage is likely to be a good measure of social distance between groups. The chapter focuses on the process through which ethnic minorities become more similar to the general population but comments on the cases where this process is not very smooth. The chapter then goes over the empirical literature on intermarriage, first examining the factors that lead to intermarriage and following with a discussion of the likely outcomes of interethnic marriage.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA

    Delia Furtado

  2. Department of Economics and Finance, The University of the South, Sewanee, TN, USA

    Tao Song

Authors
  1. Delia Furtado
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  2. Tao Song
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Correspondence to Delia Furtado .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. UNU-MERIT & Princeton University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    Klaus F. Zimmermann

Section Editor information

  1. Center for Population, Development and Labour Economics at UNU – MERIT, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    Klaus F. Zimmermann

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Furtado, D., Song, T. (2022). Interethnic Marriages. In: Zimmermann, K.F. (eds) Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57365-6_92-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57365-6_92-1

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