On the boundaries of ethnicity: ethnic differences in racial intermarriage for single and multiracial Asian Americans

Asian Americans commonly have rates of interracial marriage that indicate flexible racial boundaries, yet significant ethnic variation exists. As intermarriage produces growing numbers of multiracial Asian Americans blurring boundaries further, a significant question emerges: do ethnic distinctions persist when these offspring select spouses? Drawing upon the American Community Survey (2015–2019), we examine marriage patterns across six major Asian ethnic groups for both single-race Asians and Asian-White multiracials – specifically those who maintain specific ethnic identities (e.g. Chinese-White). We compare their likelihood of marrying White versus non-White spouses relative to Asian partners through gender-stratified multinomial logistic regression models on a sample of married Asians and Asian-Whites. Findings reveal that Vietnamese and Indian spouses have the lowest odds of marriage to non-Asians, while Japanese, Korean, and Filipino groups have the highest odds. Spousal selection for Asian-White men also varies by ethnic identity but fewer differences emerge for Asian-White women. These findings reveal that gender and ethnicity shape the likelihood of intermarriage even among those of mixed race. Instead of uniformly blurring boundaries, the experience of intermarriage and multiracial identity remains fundamentally shaped by ethnic heterogeneity and gender.