{"id":2494,"date":"2021-04-20T07:18:43","date_gmt":"2021-04-20T12:18:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/?p=2494"},"modified":"2021-04-20T12:36:21","modified_gmt":"2021-04-20T17:36:21","slug":"multiracial-children-and-their-family-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/2021\/04\/20\/multiracial-children-and-their-family-lives\/","title":{"rendered":"Multiracial children and their family lives"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Image by Gerd Altmann<\/a> from Pixabay<\/a><\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As the United States becomes more accepting of interracial unions, multiracial individuals are a rapidly growing segment of our population<\/a>.\u00a0 Social scientists frequently tout the rising number of interracial unions as a sign that racial\/ethnic distinctions are diminishing<\/a>.\u00a0 An implicit assumption behind such a view is that interracial couples live happily ever after.<\/p>\n

The reality, however, is much more complicated. Although attitudes toward interracial unions have become much more favorable over time, some interracial couples continue to report ostracism from friends and families.\u00a0 Family opposition may increase when interracial couples transition into more serious relationships<\/a>. For example, transitions into marriage and\/or childbearing often intensify opposition because they portend more permanent unions and changes to the racial\/ethnic composition of the family line.<\/p>\n

Such stigma may decrease the stability of interracial unions and increase the family instability experienced by multiracial children. For example, barriers to intermarriage may partially explain why relative to same-race couples, higher shares of interracial couples cohabit. Cohabitations are known to break up at higher rates than marriages<\/a>. Stigma and lack of family support may also have adverse effects on the relationship quality of interracial couples<\/a>. Because opposition tends to be most pronounced for White-Black interracial unions, reflecting the historic legacy of anti-miscegenation, the risk of union dissolution may be particularly high for multiracial children of White-Black descent. In general, whether or not multiracial children are more likely than their peers to experience family instability is largely unknown because existing studies focus on the family experiences of single-race children.<\/p>\n

Our research<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our study, published in the Journal of Marriage and Family<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>examined multiracial children\u2019s exposure to family instability through age 12.\u00a0 We analyzed data from the 2006-2019 National Survey of Family Growth to investigate whether multiracial children\u2019s experiences of family instability differ from their single-race peers, whether multiracial children\u2019s exposure to family instability varies by their parents\u2019 marital status at birth, and whether multiracial children of White and Black descent experience more family instability than children of White and Hispanic descent.<\/p>\n

Findings<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our results show that\u00a0how multiracial children\u2019s risk of family instability compares with that of their single-race peers varies by their parent\u2019s marital status at birth<\/i>. Multiracial children born in cohabitations were more likely than their single-race peers to experience family instability.\u00a0By contrast, the family instability experiences of multiracial children born to married parents tended to fall between those of their single-race White and single-race minority peers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Multiracial children\u2019s risk of union dissolution also differs according to both parents\u2019 race and ethnicity<\/em>, but how it differs continues to depend on parents\u2019 marital status at birth<\/em>. \u00a0Contrary to expectations, multiracial children of White-Black descent born in marriages were less likely than those of White-Hispanic descent to experience family dissolution.\u00a0 This pattern likely arises because White-Black couples in intermarriages are a select group with extraordinary levels of commitment who overcame the formidable barriers to White-Black intermarriage. Differences between multiracial children born in cohabitation were minimal.\u00a0 The lack of a difference may reflect two opposing forces at play. Parents of White-Black children experience more stigma than parents of White-Hispanic children, increasing their risk of union dissolution. Simultaneously, the more formidable barriers to interracial marriage mean that interracial cohabitations involving White-Black cohabitations may be more \u201cmarriage-like\u201d than White-Hispanic cohabitations, and thus more stable.<\/p>\n

Implications<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our findings underscore the importance of recognizing the heterogeneity of the multiracial population.\u00a0 Their family contexts differ vastly depending on their parents\u2019 marital status at birth and both parents\u2019 race\/ethnicity. Moreover, that higher shares of multiracial children are born to cohabitors suggests that the rise in interracial unions may not be blurring racial\/ethnic distinctions. Rather, our results suggest that systemic racism and associated unfavorable attitudes towards interracial unions may be creating a disadvantaged group: multiracial children born in cohabiting unions.\u00a0 These children are significantly more likely than their peers to experience family instability, which is linked to poorer outcomes.<\/p>\n

Kate H. Choi<\/strong> is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Acting Director of the Centre for Research on Social Inequality at Western University in London, ON.\u00a0 Rachel E. Goldberg <\/strong>is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology in the University of California Irvine. \u00a0Their research explores the causes and consequences of inequalities within and across families.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the United States becomes more accepting of interracial unions, multiracial individuals are a rapidly growing segment of our population.\u00a0 Social scientists frequently tout the rising number of interracial unions as a sign that racial\/ethnic distinctions are diminishing.\u00a0 An implicit assumption behind such a view is that interracial couples live happily ever after. The reality, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2095,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38845],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-work"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2095"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2494"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2497,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2494\/revisions\/2497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}