Religious Intermarriage and Conversion in the United States: Patterns and Changes Over Time

Alisa C. Lewin, University of Chicago
Linda Waite, University of Chicago

Marital heterogamy has increased in the U.S. and other countries. This study of religion and marriage introduces three innovations: First, we examine both religious conversion for marriage and religious intermarriage. Second, we compare intermarriage and conversion in both first marriages and higher order marriages. Finally, we distinguish religious groups much more finely than most previous studies. The National Survey of Families and Households is used to explore the characteristics associated with religious intermarriage, homogamy and conversion. The findings show an increase in the percentage of religious intermarriages, from about 20% of all first marriages before 1950, to about 40% of first marriages in the mid-1980s, and a slight decrease in marriages that involve a religious conversion. In all marriage cohorts, intermarriage is more common in higher order marriages than first marriages and conversion is more common in first marriages than in higher order marriages.