Ethnic Segregation and Intermarriage∗

An implicit conflict in the findings of spatial and nonspatial analysts of assimilation in the United States has led to a reexamination of the data of the classical nonspatial analysis. The hypothesis is tested that degrees of intermarriage between ethnic groups are correlated with the degree to which those groups are separated spatially. Analysis of marriages registered in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1900, 1930, and 1950 for British-American, German, Scandinavian, Irish, French, Polish, Jewish, and black groups showed that the hypothesis is correct. Notes ∗ Grateful acknowledgement is made of a Social Science Fellowship by the Nuffield Foundation of London which enabled the data to be collected in the United States and to Yale University where the author was a Visiting Fellow at the Department of Sociology while engaged on the project. Thanks are also due to St. Catherine's College Oxford for a grant from the Research Fund.