Affirmative Action Policies and Interracial Marriage

Abstract

Abstract This paper explores the relationship between affirmative action policies and race relations by examining how interracial marriage patterns change in response to the enactment of state affirmative action laws. Specifically, this paper exploits time and state variation in initiating affirmative action laws along with fact that state affirmative action policies only directly affect public-sector employees to estimate a triple difference model. I find that the probability of a white male public-sector employee having a black wife increases by 0.08 percentage points if he married in a year when there was an affirmative action policy in place in his state of residence. Furthermore, affirmative action policies do not appear to affect the likelihood of white females marry black males nor the likelihood that black females marry white males. Taken together, these results suggest that affirmative action laws improve race relations but with important gender and racial differences. JEL codes: J12 J78