U.S. whites prefer to date members of their own race, while blacks are more likely to cross the racial barrier to find romance, researchers suggest.
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, analyzed the racial preferences and online activity of 1 million profiles of U.S. singles looking for love online at a major Internet dating service from 2009 to 2010.
The online dating service asked subscribers if they wanted to date only within their race, or if they preferred someone outside their race, or if they were open to dating someone of any race.
Lead author Gerald Mendelsohn and colleagues say they compared the online daters’ stated preferences with the people they actually contacted.
“Those who said they were indifferent to the race of a partner were most likely to be young, male and black,” Mendelsohn says in a statement.
“Whites more than blacks, women more than men and old more than young participants stated a preference for a partner of the same race.”
More than 80 percent of the whites contacted whites and fewer than 5 percent contacted blacks — a disparity that held for young and older participants.
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