Application of Group Mating Bias Theory

Continuing the previous post.

The Jewish population in 2000 was 5.6 million with about 50% marrying outside the Jewish group. The US population was 291 million. Hence, Jews represent 1.9% of the US population.

Skirting various issues, such as the sex ratio, the proportions of Jews and non-Jews that marry, the age-distribution and natural fertility of Jews, etc. for which I have no data:

Given that the Jews are 1.9% of the US population, if they were not biased in favor of their group, then they would marry outside their group f(Jews) = 98.1% of the time.

But they outmarry O(Jews) = 50% of the time.

Hence, O(Jews)/f(Jews) is approximately equal to 0.5, indicating that Jews are indeed biased in favor of their own group.

This is hardly surprising since most groups are biased in favor of their own group. In fact, I doubt there is any group that is not biased.

Increasing outmarriage rates are caused by two factors: (i) small size of a group, and (ii) decreasing mate selection bias.

It's interesting to note that the US population in 1990 was 249 million while the Jewish one was 5.5 million. Hence, Jews made up 2.2% of the population.

As we have seen, small groups tend to outmarry more; and groups that outmarry tend to become smaller, inasmuch as group identification is lost in inter-group marriages. Hence, a self-feeding cycle occurs that will (without a doubt) lead to the cultural extinction or assimilation of small groups.

So, if small groups want to survive as distinct entities they should (big surprise!) increase their birth rate and their bias in favor of their own kind. If that happens to a significant degree, then the loss of human capital via outmarriage will be counterbalanced by its gain through intra-group fertility.

Posted by Dienekes at June 17, 2003 05:52 PM | PermaLink