Almost All Millennials Accept Interracial Dating and Marriage

Almost All Millennials Accept Interracial Dating and Marriage

Over the last several decades, the American public has grown increasingly accepting of interracial dating and marriage. This shift in opinion has been driven both by attitude change among individuals generally and by the fact that over the period, successive generations have reached adulthood with more racially liberal views than earlier generations. Millennials are no exception to this trend: Large majorities of 18-to-29 year olds express support for interracial marriage within their families, and the level of acceptance in this generation is greater than in other generations.

The Pew Research Center's recent report on racial attitudes in the U.S. finds that an overwhelming majority of Millennials, regardless of race, say they would be fine with a family member's marriage to someone of a different racial or ethnic group. Asked about particular groups to which they do not belong, Millennials are about equally accepting of marriage to someone in any of the groups tested: Roughly nine-in-ten say they would be fine with a family member's marriage to an African American (88%), a Hispanic American (91%), an Asian American (93%) or a white American (92%).

This high level of acceptance among Millennials holds true across ethnic and racial groups; there is no significant difference between white, black and Hispanic Millennials in the degree of acceptance of interracial marriage.

Read the full report Almost All Millennials Accept Interracial Dating and Marriage on the Pew Research Center's Web site.