Who Marries Whom? The Role of Segregation by Race and Class

Any opinions and conclusions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the U.S. Census Bureau. The Census Bureau has ensured appropriate access and use of confidential data and has reviewed these results for disclosure avoidance protection (Project 7519874: CBDRB-FY23-CES014-009, CBDRB-FY23-0492, CBDRB-FY24-0106, CBDRB-FY25-0334). This research was funded by Opportunity Insights, the Stone Program at Harvard Kennedy School, the National Science Foundation (DGE-2140743), Harvard University, and Cornell University. We are grateful to Raj Chetty, Claudia Goldin, Nathan Hendren, Larry Katz, and Jesse Shapiro for their detailed comments and invaluable advice. We also thank Sule Alan, Isaiah Andrews, Zach Bleemer, Steve Coate, Kaveh Danesh, Will Dobbie, Brad Foster, John Friedman, Ed Glaeser, Jeff Gortmaker, Philipp Kircher, Martin Koenen, Zhuan Pei, Danielle Sandler, Ben Scuderi, Matthew Staiger, Elie Tamer, Winnie van Dijk, and Joseph Winkelmann for their insightful feedback and suggestions. Additionally, we extend our thanks to the editor, four anonymous referees, and seminar participants at Cornell, Dartmouth, Georgetown, Harvard, Northwestern, the University of Chicago, the University of California Berkeley, the University of California San Diego, and Yale. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

• online appendix
• Non-Technical Summary
• County-Level Marriage Data