Note on Educational Homogamy in Negro-White and White-Negro Marriages, 1960

Interracial marriages as of 1960 were educationally about as homogamous as intra-racial marriages; most partners in both types of marriage were in the same educational brackets as their spouses. IWhen intermarriages were not homogamous, there was more tendency for the Negro spouses to marry up than to marry down, a tendency much more pronounced in the case of Negro women than of Negro men. Wlhite men in interracial marriages tended to marry down more than up; there was little difference among the white women in intermarriages, about the same marrying down as up. The average number of years of schooling of wives, Negro or white, was higher than the average number of years of husbands, Negro or white. Negro-white marriages seem to be increasing somewhat more rapidly than white-Negro marriages.