Why do so many more black men marry white women than vice versa? [View all]

That most people marry people the same race as them, but some people don't, does not interest me very much - that people are more likely to associate with people of their own race is slightly sad, but entirely unsurprising; that they associate with people of other races too is obvious; and if you associate with people then sometimes you'll fall in love with them.

But what I do find very interesting, and don't have a good explanation for, is the fact that there are far (more than twice as many) more black man/white woman relationships than white man/black woman. That, presumably, says something quite significant about how people think or feel about race and sex and the interaction between them. But I have no idea what.

It gets even more striking if you include Asians. Here is a table I copy-pasted from wikipedia, and then rearranged:

Black Wife White Wife Asian Wife Other Wife
Black Husband 4,072,000 390,000 39,000 66,000
White Husband 168,000 50,410,000 529,000 487,000
Asian Husband 9,000 219,000 2,855,000 28,000
Other Husband 18,000 488,000 37,000 568,000

There are twice as many black man/white woman marriages as vice versa, twice as many white man/asian woman marriages as vice versa, and four times as many black man/asian women marriages as vice versa.

There are also significantly more black husbands and asian wives total than black wives or asian husbands - I've read in several sources that black women find it hard to find husbands because of this asymmetry.