Jessica Donnelly Family quiz

Jessica Donnelly

Word Count: 519

            The article, Trends in Marital Happiness by Gender and Race, 1973 to 2006, by J. Scott Carter, Shannon K. Carter, Mamadi Corra, and David Knox, examines the methods and findings of a survey regarding race and gender and their impact on marital happiness. The data was collected from the General Social Survey from the years 1973-2006. They collected responses from 24,455 married respondents. They respondents were randomly drawn adults, 18 years or older. The dependent variable in this survey was the question of how one would describe their marriage. The answer choices being "very happy," "pretty happy," or "not too happy." The information was divided into four decades. The independent variables in this survey were mainly sex and race, divided into four categories: White husbands, White wives, Black husbands, and Black wives. Other independent variables considered were work status, whether the individual had been divorced before, age of respondent, education, income, etc.

            The findings of this survey are supportive of the idea that race and gender have a significant impact on happiness within a marriage. Whites and males seemed to have higher levels of happiness, with White males being the happiest in marriage. This could potentially come from their position in the family, which is usually one of power. White wives did not have any significant increase in happiness over the years. Black husbands had a slight decrease in happiness over the years. The lowest happiness levels come from Black wives. However, they had a major increase in levels of happiness in the years 1990-2006. The reason for this increase cannot explained without further research. But these results show that the levels of happiness vary among different races and sexes.

            The article, Whom Do Immigrants Marry? Emerging Patterns of Intermarriage and Integration in the United States, by Daniel T. Lichter, Zhenchao Qian, and Dmitry Tumin, examines the methods and findings of a survey regarding intermarriage patterns between immigrants and natives. The data was collected from the decennial censuses. The data is from 2008-2012 in the American Community Survey. There were 86,124 different sex couples, each one containing a husband and wife in one record. Natives are defined as people born in the U.S. and immigrants are defined as foreign-born people. The hypothesis in this study states those with a minority, ethnic background is a barrier of marriage between native-born people and foreign-born. They are categorized into five groups: non-Hispanic Whites, non-Hispanic Blacks, American Indians, Hispanics, and Asians. Furthermore, the foreign-born respondents were categorized into national origin.

            The findings of this survey prove that the odds are 30 times greater for an endogamous relationship to occur than an exogamous relationship. An endogamous relationship in this case is defined as a relationship where both partners are of the same ethnic background and an exogamous relationship is one where they marry outside of their ethnicity. Percentages of endogamous marriages were highest among native-born Whites. Native-born Asian men had the highest levels of exogamy. Blacks and Hispanics ended up having a variance of levels of exogamy. Native-born Hispanic men are far less likely to be in an endogamous marriage than native-born Black men. Foreign-born Asian men proved to be the most likely to engage in an endogamous marriage. These results show a large variance across different ethnicities and races. They also support that marriage patterns change among the population, based on ethnicity and native origin.