For residents of Hawaii during the years 1969–1971 and 1979–1981, this article investigates marriage patterns by ethnicity and level of education, using measures that control for the composition of the population. The extent of marriage between members of different ethnic groups is substantial and increasing. Intergroup marriage is not concentrated among particular ethnic groups, nor is it a characteristic of persons with either high or low levels of education. Nevertheless, Hawaii is not a society that ignores ethnicity. There is an ethnic hierarchy, with Chinese, Japanese, and Whites the more favored groups and Hawaiians and Filipinos the less favored. In marriage behavior, that hierarchy is seen in the presence of apparent exchanges between education and ethnicity, as the extent to which women “marry up” with respect to education depends upon the ethnicities of the bride and groom.
A new method for identifying the role of marital preferences at shaping marriage patterns