Not so Black and White: Interracial marriage and wages

Abstract

We examine wages of Black and White interracially married individuals compared to their intramarried counterparts in the United States. We find a raw interracial marriage wage penalty for White spouses and a raw interracial marriage wage premium for Black spouses. The differential disappears for females, but not for males, when controlling for selection on standard wage equation variables. Negative selection on unobservables into interracial marriage explain the White male penalty. We find a larger penalty for White males and a smaller premium for Black males in states that were forced to allow interracial marriage by the Supreme Court.