Intermarriage Attitudes among Minority and Majority Groups in Western Europe: The Role of Attachment to the Family, Religious In-Group and Perceived Distance

This chapter discusses social distance, potential explanations and linked to previous literature on processes of immigrant integration, in-group favouritism, prejudice and homophily. The deduced hypotheses are then empirically tested with regression analyses. While abundant studies have investigated intermarriage behaviour, only a few studies have used survey data to analyse attitudes towards intermarriage. Along with religiosity, views on family and sexual liberalization have been discussed as varying between ethnic groups. The chapter uses the multivariate analyses, to investigate the merits of the hypothesis concerning the role of in-group attachment for the approval of intermarriage. In line with the theory of in-group favouritism, the analysis reveals that ethnic origin is closely tied to familial and religious attachment, which ultimately contributes to the emergence of group boundaries between natives and migrants. In the long run, socio-economic equality is one mechanism that fosters intergroup contact.