New Demographic Perspectives on Studying Intermarriage in the United States

The study of Jewish intermarriage has largely ignored the measurement conventions prevalent in the field of demography such as using first marriages (as opposed to current marriages) and not controlling for mixed parentage. I re-analyze the NJPS 2000—2001 using first marriages and controlling for parentage and find evidence that intermarriage has leveled off among single ancestry Jews. Jewish intermarriage is placed in an American context by (1) putting in Kalmijn's conceptual schema and (2) using the odds-ratio to compare intermarriage in controlling for group size. Single ancestry Jews are surprisingly endogamous compared with other groups in America. Two new directions for further research in a demographic context are discussed: including non-jewish spouses in population studies and thinking about mixed ancestry Jews in the context of multi-racial persons.