I recently read an article from Quartz titled, The mixed-race advantage in online dating and felt compelled to share some facts and figures about the truth of what not just online dating, but really society as a whole will look as far as racial make-up in the United States in about 45 years.
While there may in fact be a racial bias in online dating and dating in American society as well as other societies, the fact is the number of interracial singles are the fastest-growing segment as in the online dating pool, a fact which seems to get lost in loads of facts and figures. Perhaps this fact is partially overlooked in the effort to look for a new story.
So let’s talk about a few things that head led to having more mixed race singles in the first place…
In America, the fact is, over the most recent generation the likelihood of having a mixed-race parent is much greater which can be directly attributed to social progress and multicultural understanding. (Or so we’d like to think) In many cases, laws changed and that had an impact on attitudes. (See the chart below)
In other words, about 40 years ago more people actually were allowed to date and marry who they wanted to, and many did just that. Over time more and more singles felt compelled to do just the same–they followed their own preferences based on who they felt most well-connected to. It’s not terribly complex to see that with more interracial singles in the dating pool there is an increase in people dating interracial singles.
That trend will only continue as race becomes less and less an issue in dating and life in general and again as more babies are born that are interracial.
Two plus two still equals four according to our research.
The article I cited above-used research from a major dating site over a 7 year period from 2003-2010. The research was done by the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and University of Texas-Austin. The overall outcome of the research was the multiracial singles seemed to get more responses and be in general more sought after on online dating sites.
Specifically, Asian-white women came out on top as the most sought after. This is in my view a case of writing a news story for keywords and controversy; it might be semi-interesting but it fails to tell the whole story. In my own extrapolation of the study, the population growth of mixed race singles is merely a result of singles not caring as much about race, meaning this population has risen.
The point is, over time more people become interracial just as a matter of statistics through child-bearing.
History Lessons and Public Perception
I would just highlight the fact that in America, interracial marriage was banned or rather outlawed until 1967 which is only 47 years ago; not half of even 1 generation. At that time 16 states outlawed it. Moreover, 15 years prior to that 14 other states outlawed interracial marriage.
Race issues are always complex and heated but people are influenced by social norms and social norms are often present due to laws, good or bad.
Clearly, these were reprehensible laws that made no sense at all and actually caused damage versus progressing a society.
Societal pressures, I would say clearly prevented a pattern that is taking place today with fewer interracial children being born who would later enter the dating pool.
Moreover, if we look at the Gallup poll numbers for the attitudes about interracial marriage since this time it tells a story about societal pressures changing.
Source: gallup.com
My conclusion is simply this. Online dating is dating, there is no differentiation for doing something using technology or doing it in person, at least not so much as far as preferences in rare, except fewer social pressures exist. If anything can really be gained from the headlines that mixed race singles are more desirable it’s simply that people these days care less about race than ever before. Maybe it’s the news outlets that care about the race factor because people tend to feel strongly about stories that suggest race matters? (…When clearly it should not.)
I will remind my readers that really ALL dating sites are interracial these days. Statistically speaking the dating sites that have the most mixed singles are also the very same dating site that has the most singles. Not that complex, right? 🙂
Lastly, I wanted to share this video by The Ruben Report on YouTube. This video shows the reality that by 2060 57% of Americans will be mixed race as a result of both immigration and interracial birth rate increases.
Moreover, it shares the shift towards a larger older population as a result of the dropping birth rate in the U.S. This is also true of cam sites these days!
Happy Dating!