IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cen/wpaper/12-24.html

Intergenerational Transmission of Race: Permeable Boundaries between 1970 and 2010

Author

Listed:
  • Carolyn A. Liebler
  • Marie DeRousse-Wu

Abstract

We study the social construction of race boundaries by investigating patterns in the race, ancestry, and Mexican origin responses provided for children of 14 types of interracial marriages using dense restricted-use data from 1970 to 2010. Our broader purpose is to expose social processes that convert a newborn child of mixed heritage into an adult person of a particular race. We include a more diverse set of families, a longer time span, and more accurate estimates than prior research. These expansions bear fruit.Taking ancestry responses into account and studying the longer-term patterns reveals that mixed-heritage responses have been common since 1980. Expanding the types of mixed heritage and including double-minorities shows that there is substantial variation in response patterns across the 14 groups.

Suggested Citation

  • Carolyn A. Liebler & Marie DeRousse-Wu, 2012. "Intergenerational Transmission of Race: Permeable Boundaries between 1970 and 2010," Working Papers 12-24, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    • Handle: RePEc:cen:wpaper:12-24
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2012/CES-WP-12-24.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2012
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brian Duncan & Stephen J. Trejo, 2011. "Intermarriage and the Intergenerational Transmission of Ethnic Identity and Human Capital for Mexican Americans," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29(2), pages 195-227.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Delia Furtado & Stephen J. Trejo, 2013. "Interethnic marriages and their economic effects," Chapters, in: Amelie F. Constant & Klaus F. Zimmermann (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Migration, chapter 15, pages 276-292, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Barry R. Chiswick & Paul W. Miller, 2018. "Do native-born bilinguals in the US earn more?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 563-583, September.
    3. Brian Duncan & Stephen J. Trejo, 2011. "Tracking Intergenerational Progress for Immigrant Groups: The Problem of Ethnic Attrition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 603-608, May.
    4. Brian Duncan & Stephen J. Trejo, 2025. "Which Mexicans Are White? Enumerator-Assigned Race in the 1930 Census and the Socioeconomic Integration of Mexican Americans," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 78(1), pages 62-85, January.
    5. Francisca Antman & Brian Duncan, 2015. "Incentives to Identify: Racial Identity in the Age of Affirmative Action," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(3), pages 710-713, July.
    6. Furtado, Delia & Song, Tao, 2014. "Trends in the Returns to Social Assimilation: Earnings Premiums among U.S. Immigrants that Marry Natives," IZA Discussion Papers 8626, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Brian Duncan & Stephen J. Trejo, 2017. "The Complexity of Immigrant Generations: Implications for Assessing the Socioeconomic Integration of Hispanics and Asians," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 70(5), pages 1146-1175, October.
    8. Koczan, Zs, 2013. "Does identity matter," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1313, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    9. Duncan, Brian & Grogger, Jeffrey & Leon, Ana Sofia & Trejo, Stephen J., 2020. "New evidence of generational progress for Mexican Americans," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    10. Helena Skyt Nielsen & Beatrice Schindler Rangvid, 2012. "The impact of parents’ years since migration on children’s academic achievement," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 1(1), pages 1-23, December.
    11. Jenifer L. Bratter, 2018. "Multiracial Identification and Racial Gaps: A Work in Progress," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 677(1), pages 69-80, May.
    12. Brian Duncan & Stephen J. Trejo, 2009. "Ancestry versus ethnicity: the complexity and selectivity of Mexican identification in the United States," Research in Labor Economics, in: Ethnicity and Labor Market Outcomes, pages 31-66, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    13. Francisca M. Antman & Brian Duncan & Stephen J. Trejo, 2020. "Ethnic attrition, assimilation, and the measured health outcomes of Mexican Americans," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(4), pages 1499-1522, October.
    14. Brian Duncan & Stephen J. Trejo, 2025. "Immigrant Age at Arrival and the Intergenerational Transmission of Ethnic Identification among Mexican Americans," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 115, pages 451-456, May.
    15. Brian Duncan & Stephen J. Trejo, 2015. "Assessing the Socioeconomic Mobility and Integration of U.S. Immigrants and Their Descendants," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 657(1), pages 108-135, January.
    16. Mariela Dal Borgo, 2019. "Ethnic and racial disparities in saving behavior," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 17(2), pages 253-283, June.
    17. Francisca Antman & Brian Duncan & Stephen J. Trejo, 2016. "Ethnic Attrition and the Observed Health of Later-Generation Mexican Americans," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 467-471, May.
    18. Wendy D. Roth, 2010. "Racial Mismatch: The Divergence Between Form and Function in Data for Monitoring Racial Discrimination of Hispanics," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 91(s1), pages 1288-1311.
    19. Assaf Sarid & Oded Galor, "undated". "Geographical Origins and Economic Consequences of Language Structures," Working Papers WP2017/4, University of Haifa, Department of Economics.
    20. Joanna Lahey & Roberto Mosquera, 2024. "Age and hiring for high school graduate Hispanics in the United States," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 37(1), pages 1-40, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cen:wpaper:12-24. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Dawn Anderson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesgvus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.