Census: Unmarried Couples More Diverse

AP ^ | March 13, 2003 | GENARO C. ARMAS

[Indy Pendance]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Unmarried couples - whether same-sex or opposite-sex - are far more likely than married couples to mix race or ethnicity, Census Bureau data shows.

About 7 percent of the nation's 54.5 million married couples are mixed racially or ethnically, compared to about 15 percent of the 4.9 million unmarried heterosexual couples. The percentage is only slightly lower for the nation's nearly 600,000 same-sex couples.

Deva Kyle, a black law student who lives with her white boyfriend, said people in interracial relationships tend to be more liberal so are more apt to share a home without being married.

Kyle, 24, of Alexandria, Va., has no plans to marry her boyfriend of five years. She said they plan a "commitment ceremony" that is not legally binding but still makes a statement for family and friends.

"Marriage has a lot of patriarchal underpinnings that I have a lot of problems with," she said.

Dorion Solot, executive director of the Boston-based Alternatives to Marriage Project, said Kyle is an example of a growing number of people who don't t see race as an inhibiting factor to a relationship.

"What was once the talk of gossipmongers is now the new normal," she said. "The younger generation expects to live together before marriage, and doesn't see race as a barrier to love."

The census report summarizes unmarried partner data initially released two years ago by state, race and age. The 2000 head count was the first in which the bureau extensively analyzed unmarried partner data.

Specifically, a question on the census asked "How is this person related?" For people living together who were unrelated, options included "Roomer, boarder," "Housemate, roommate," "unmarried partner" and "foster child."

By state, Utah had one of the lowest percentages of homes headed by unmarried couples, about 5 percent of all coupled households. Alabama and Arkansas were also among the lowest states.

Alaska, Nevada and Vermont each had over 12.5 percent of their coupled households led by unmarried partners, among the highest in the country.

Totaling heterosexual and homosexual couples, the census found 5.5 million households headed by unmarried partners nationwide, just over 5 percent of the country's 105.5 million homes, while married couples head just over 50 percent.

Interracial relationships - regardless of marital status - tended to occur more often in the West and states with higher minority populations, said Martin O'Connell, head of the bureau's family statistics branch.

It occurred most often in Hawaii, where over one-third of married couples were interracial, along with over one-half of opposite-sex unmarried couples. Interracial couples comprised less than one-half of gay and lesbian partnerships.

Rates were also high in Alaska, New Mexico and Oklahoma. The latter two have large populations of Native Americans.

Conversely, the New England states of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, which have low minority populations, also have lower percentages of interracial relationships.

Vermont in 2000 passed the first law granting homosexual couples virtually all the state rights and responsibilities afforded to married couples. Among homosexual partners in Vermont, just over 1 in 20 were between people of different races or ethnicity.

David Smith, spokesman for the gay rights advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, called the report "groundbreaking" since the government hadn't issued such a detailed report on homosexual relationships before.

Smith believes homosexual couples are undercounted, regardless of race or ethnic background. He said some people, fearing discrimination, may not have admitted on the census form that they are in a same-sex relationship.

Federal law mandates all answers to the census remain confidential.

The 1990 census form was the first to offer an "unmarried partner" checkoff. It found 3.2 million total unmarried partners, less than 5 percent of whom were the same sex. That data cannot be directly compared with 2000 because of differences in its collection and analysis.

[Torie]

Not according to the author of Guns, Germs and Steel. The Australian natives migrated there by the double hull boat just like the rest of the region was settled. The folks went from Fukien to Taiwan and then elsewhere. At least that is my memory. Visually, it certainly fits. Due to the environment, over thousands of years, certain skills were lost, or gained, depending on the place.

[nopardons]

GOD , according to the OT, turned Ham, one of Noah's three sons , black, when he saw his father's nakedness. GOD may know everything, but the ancient Hebrews never saw an Asian. Race didn't matter much back then. No one had a " hangup " / bias about it.

Look, almost no noe here, least of all me, cares what race anyone is. We're all ( at least we were ) just commenting on the article. You're the one taking us off topic and talking about race. :-)

[Torie]

The thing is, is that the Pacific Islander group looks very distinct. I wish I knew more. Folks on New Guinea really don't look very Han Chinese at all. They look more Negroid if anything, but that isn't right either. If you look at pics of the "natives" on Taiwan, about 2% of the population, they really look very different as well.

[cyborg]

I am not now, nor have I EVER been " hostile " to you. I just have to keep correcting the unbelieveable errors you keep posting.
Here's a better question. Why do YOU keep posting such complete and incomprehnsively inaccurat/ erronious things ? Why do you think that you can get away with it ?

:sigh: You call me a ditz and brainwashed and I'm supposed to continue this conversation and assume you aren't hostile towards me.

Please have the curtisy to answer my little " game " questions.

*Human beings... I don't care really. I don't believe in evolution so of course I would not have as much information as another poster did, and can't play this scientific name-that-race game.

Oh and the answer to your query is that NO, we don't have to manufacture another race, because people of different races marry and reproduce. Their children are of mixed race; that's all, and it doesn't matter at all. :-)

*Well we agree on something! Maybe it will snow here in New York tomorrow after all.

[nopardons]

Great book ; however, I don't remember him postulating that theory about the Austrailians. I'll have to reread the book now. LOL Anyway, what I wrote, is what I learned in college AND what is in the back of the National Geographic Atlas, I have; which is at least two decades old . I have NOT read about any " new " diversions from the three race theory, nor a change about those indigenous to Austrailia. :-)

[nopardons]

Look, newbie, you keep posting inaccurate / totally wrong / error filled posts and you then say that a correction is " an hostile act ". That's garbage and you had best grow a much thicker skin, if you plan to stay here and post garbage.

I called you a " ditz ", because it was kinder and gentiler, than the truth. I said that you are " brainwashed ", because you used " multicultural ( how VERY PC ! ), instead of saying mixed, or inter-racial, and / or many ethniced family. We aren't PC on FR. :-)

Evolution has absolutely NOTHING at all, whatsoever, to do with my questions to you, ethnicity, nor even race. You don't understand the meaning of the word e-v-o-l-u-t-i-o-n.

[cyborg]

Okay I give up. You win.

[nopardons]

Yes, I know. Look, also at the many different physical characteristics amongst the various indigenous peoples of North and South America; not to mention the Eskimos. It's amazing !

Then, there are the startling differences between the original inhabitants of Japan, the Ainu, and the majority of Japanese living there now. They are, of course, two different and distict races.

[Torie]

Just how did this Caucasion island in Australia come to pass (even though visually the natives look very more like the islanders to the north, than anything out of the Russian Steppes?), thousands of miles from any other of the race? What did National Geographic have to say about that? It strikes me as ludicrous, although with modern genetics I guess there is now an answer. The author of Guns, Germs and Steel relied on linguistics, which was absolutely transfixing to me to read about.

[nopardons]

It isn't a question of " winning ". It's that you just keep posting inaccurate/ erronious / strange things. If not me, someone else is going to take you to task, on what you post, that's wrong. That's how FR is. :-)

[cyborg]

I am not going to continue this discussion. If you want to continue it privately in FReemail then that's fine. I don't want this thread relegated to the smokey back room (?) because of anything I said or something I apparently started.

I will say that I'm still suspect of this article. Many people don't care about marriage anymore and are seeking to undermine the institution.

[nopardons]

Of course, originally, genetics weren't used ( they hadn't been thought of, there was NO clue about DNA, and I'm really not sure HOW they decided it all )to postulate this theroy. Later, much later ( LOL ), genetics have been used to bolster the first postulate.

Okay, I just went down to the main library and pulled the Atlas. Mongoloid, not Asian, is the thrid racial catagory. :-)

The Atlas doesn't go into great deatail; however, it says that bone mass, hair, and beard heft, is what made scients classify Australian natives as Caucasoid; DNA too .

There is a Negroid tribe, in Africa ( the Dordons...sp ? ), whose priest have the SAME DNA as the Cohens ( the priest class of Judeism )do. These are NOT Falacial Jews. They don't come from anywhere near Ethiopia. Go figure. LOL

There is a sticky point, using linguistics, to intertwine seperate racial groups with each other. A case in point is those who speak an Urgistic language ... the Hungarians, the Lapps, and the Japanese. Two are Caucasoids, one Mongoloid. Okay, so some Magyars have somewhat slanted eyes and may be of long ago mixed breeding; however, there is absolutely NOTHING like that with the Lapps. Then, there is also the culinary route.Some Magyar dishes are quite similar to Japanese ones. It shocked me , completely, the first time I ever had Japanese cucumber salad ! It is almost identical to the Hungarian one. :-)

[nopardons]

Neither you nor I have broken any FR rules, nor have we started a flame war; well, I haven't and neither one of us , no matter what you think, has engaged in personal attacks. There is NO reason for thsi thread to be moved to the back room.

I don't wish to continue this, in private. If you do / need more facts, then write me a note. :-)

Those, today, who no longer " believe " in marriage, have been brainwashed. Historical footnote, for ya ... it really WAS a Communist plot, and this is NOT " tinfoil ", but proven fact. Look into this, in the FR archieves, under how the Communists decided to take over this country.

[staytrue]

Getting back to the original article, I think this is again a case of idiot science. Basically, I think the minority population is younger than the white population and younger means less likely to get or be married. I think it is more a matter of generational values and age, than any conclusion that can be made.

To do the science to correct for this, they would have to compare percent minorities unmarried and living together of a given age group vs. percent whites unmarried and living together of THE SAME age group.

God I hate junk science.

[Black Agnes]

It was only 'illegal' if one of them said something about it. My GGrandfather was NA, his wife was half NA. Their daughter married a 'white' boy in the 1930's. In MS. Nobody said a word. They had a bunch of kids who had a bunch of kids. We're all 'mixed'. There are lots of 'mixed' people in the SE. Some/most are unaware of the mixing & that's the sad part.

[Black Agnes]

MY NA GGrandfather didn't wear skins or have feathers in his hair. He was a farmer who worked as a 'hand' until he and his wife had saved enough money to buy his own land. He worked his butt off and 'culturally' was as white as his neighbors. He was a Methodist too. (Before they went insane). Multi-racial isn't bad, multi-cultural is.

[LWalk18]

To be fair, marrying a Native American was not illegal, marrying a Black person was until 1967. There is a big difference, especially in the south.

[Black Agnes]

That depends on the state. The anti-miscegenation laws differed greatly from state to state. White people were prohibited from marrying 'non white'. If you don't believe me, as a few NA's.

[Stage Fright]

Yes, it is the weather. :o)

[LWalk18]

I think Mississippi's law only applied to marriages between blacks and whites.