Inter-group marriage and United States military service

The United States military services provide contact and opportunities for inter-group marriages that do not exist in the larger society. The services recruit men and women from all ethnic and racial groups. Since the military serves in all parts of the world, military personnel meet individuals from a variety of countries. Further, the military services emphasize non-discrimination and equal opportunity, and individuals of all groups train together. We argue that these factors provide an environment that is relatively tolerant of heterogamous marriages. We examine the effects of current and past military service, military rank, and type of service on rates of inter-group marriage. The data are from public use microsamples of the 1990 census (PUMS) and the Current Population Survey (CPS) from 1976 to 1998. The results show increases in exogamy rates for blacks and whites, but not for Hispanics and Asians. Considerable variation is found by period, rank, and type of military service.