Intermarriage and Social Support Among Canadians in Middle and Later Life

Despite widespread attention to population aging and contemporary increases in racial intermarriage, little is known regarding their joint implications for social support in middle and later life. Drawing on data from the 2007 General Social Survey conducted by Statistics Canada on intermarried and endogamously married adults age 45 and over (N = 13,238), this study examined the effects of intermarriage on instrumental and emotional support. The results revealed that intermarriage was accompanied by a reduced likelihood of instrumental support with transportation from others outside the household but that it had no impact on the receipt of help with household tasks or in caring for family members and a positive impact on emotional support. These findings suggest that intermarriage is not uniformly positive, neutral, or negative in its implications for social support. Future theoretical and empirical work will need to address the complexities of these relationships in order to enhance our understanding of these emergent family structures.Key Words: intermarriage, late life, middle age, race, social support.Recent demographic trends in the United States and Canada, like those in other developed countries, include the aging of the population as well as shifts in ethnic and racial composition due to changing immigration patterns. The former is increasing the number of people in their later years of life and, with it, attendant requirements for social support and care. The latter is having an impact on marital and family structures, institutions within which needs for social support and care tend to be met. This includes the nature and extent of racial intermarriage (mixed union). In the United States, interracial marriage rates increased from 1.8% of all marriages in 1990 to 2.6% in 2000 and nearly 3.9% in 2008 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012). In Canada, the rate of intermarriage increased from 2.6% of all unions in 1991 to 3.1% in 2001 and 3.9% in 2006 (Statistics Canada, 2008). Similar trends have been observed in other Western multiracial societies (Fincham & Beach, 2010). At present, intermarriage is more common among younger than older adults (Milan, Maheux, & Chui, 2010), likely reflecting more recent changes in laws, attitudes, and norms regarding intermarriage. Nevertheless, the increasing prevalence of intermarriage represents but one of a series of changes to family structure (including increases in childlessness, divorce, remarriage, and stepfamily formation) being experienced by cohorts currently entering into and transitioning through the later years of life that are likely to influence their access to familial and other resources for support as they age (Silverstein & Giarrusso, 2010). Such changes suggest that today's middle-aged and older adults are likely to have more diverse family networks than previous generations. Thus, insofar as intermarriage influences access to sources of support, increases in intermarriage raise important questions about the future wellbeing of older adults.Despite considerable interest in the implications of changes in family structure for the support of people as they age, little is known about those associated with racial intermarriage. Although extensive research has addressed overall patterns and trends in intermarriage in Canada (Hamplova & Le Bourdais, 2010; S. M. Lee & Boyd, 2008), the United States (Fu, 2001,2010; Kalmijn & van Tubergen, 2010; Qian & Lichter, 2011), Europe (Gonzalez-Ferrer, 2006; Kalmijn & van Tubergen, 2006), and elsewhere (Okun, 2001), much less research has examined its implications (Kalmijn, 2010). In addition, where these have been addressed, the focus has been on the development of racial identities (J. Lee & Bean, 2004; Qian, 2004), psychological distress (Brader & Eschbach, 2006), or marital stability and divorce (Brader & King, 2008; Fu & Wolfinger, 2011 ; Zhang & van Flook, 2009), rather than on issues of social support (Kalmijn, 2010). …