Intermarriage by birthplace and ancestry in Australia

Sociologists have long regarded intermarriage as a key indicator of ethnic integration. The authors analyse marriage data from the 2006 Australian census. They find that many ethnic groups show low levels of intermarriage in the first generation but that, by the third generation, rates of intermarriage are high. However most groups of migrants from South and East Asia and from the Middle East and Africa have not been in Australia long enough for us to know whether the relationship between length of time in Australia and integration will hold for them as it has for the earlier cohorts of European migrants.