Premarital Residential Propinquity and Ethnic Endogamy

Abstract

In New Haven the increasing rate of marriage between persons living within twenty blocks of one another (64.43 per cent in 1931;76.31 per cent in 1940) is closely related to ethnic endogamy. While the pattern of in-marriage on a neighborhood basis prevails within every racial and nationality group, it is particularly pronounced among Negroes, Jews, and Italians. Very little intermarriage (5.7 per cent) occurs between persons residing in areas markedly different in social, economic, and cultural traits. The fact that more than half of these were ethnic in-marriages suggests a change in the character of the areas rather than any increasing tendency toward nationality exogemy.