Metropolitan Context and Racial-Ethnic Marriage Patterns among Young Adults

Laquitta M. Smith Walker, Arizona State University

Previous research has highlighted racial/ethnic disparities in marriage behavior and has linked it with contextual factors such as neighborhoods and cultural differences. Yet, to my knowledge, there are no studies that offer a comparison of White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian individuals across metropolitan areas to compare how an individuals’ race/ethnicity is linked to both metropolitan context and whether or not they have ever married. This paper seeks to understand the relationship among the processes by using 2006-2010 American Community Survey data. This study uses a multi-level approach to predict the probability that young adults have never married based on a cluster of metropolitan-level characteristics.