ABSTRACT
Increases in rates of ethnic and racial intermarriages, coupled with larger flows of immigrants from diverse countries of origin, have led to growing proportions of persons of mixed ancestry and backgrounds in many societies. Findings from the 2000 U.S. census indicate that 2.4 percent of all the respondents and 4.0 percent of the respondents under age eighteen identified themselves as belonging to more than one race (Jones and Smith 2001). Because ethnic and racial exogamy tends to be more common among second-generation than among first-generation immigrants, the growing size of the second generation in the United States will likely lead to larger proportions of multiracial and multiethnic individuals in the future (Gshur and Okun 2003; Portes 1994; Qian and Lichter 2001). Studies of intermarriage in the United Kingdom, France, Sweden, and Israel have suggested that future generations in these countries will also have significant proportions of multiracial and multiethnic persons (Coleman 1994; Cretser 1999; Okun 2001). Patterns of intermarriage are thus challenging concepts of race and ethnicity and are leading to complex views of ethnic and racial boundaries (Harris and Sim 2002; Hirschman 2003; Rock-quemore and Brunsma 2002).
