Beyond FACTS: Population Reference Bureau on “New Marriages, New Families”

So how many mixed-race couples are heading to the altar, anyway? Is there really a market for biracial wedding cake toppers? Turns out there is! According to the Population Reference Bureau’s informative report “New Marriages, New Families: U.S. Racial and Hispanic Intermarriage,” the 2000 census revealed an increase in the number of American children living in interracial families from 900,000 in 1970 to more than 3 million. That’s a result of an increase in interracial marriages from less than 1 percent of all married couples in 1970 to more than 5 percent of couples in 2000. As interracial marriages have become more common, so has tolerance for these unions: “The percentage of whites who favored laws against marriages between blacks and whites declined from 35 percent in the 1970s to 10 percent in the 2000s.” While there’s still a long way to go on the discrimination front, it’s encouraging to read numbers that indicate at least some sort of progress!