Justice

The Urban-Rural Divide in Interracial Marriage

More Americans than ever are married to someone of a different race—but it’s more common in some places than others.
John Bazemore/AP

Fifty years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down laws against interracial marriage, interracial couples are more common than ever before—especially in cities.

That’s a finding from a new report from the Pew Research Center looking at the state of interracial marriage today. Overall, there has been a dramatic increase in interracial marriage. In 2015, 10 percent of all married Americans were married to someone of a different race or ethnicity. That’s up from just 3 percent in 1980. Seventeen percent of all weddings performed in 2015 were interracial, up from 7 percent in 1980.