"Beyond the melting pot": Cultural transmission, marriage, and the evolution of ethnic and religious traits

This paper presents an economic analysis of the intergenerational transmiss ion of ethnic and religious traits through family socialization and marital segregation decisions. Frequency of intragroup marriage (homogamy), as wel l as socialization rates of religious and ethnic groups, depend on the grou p's share of the population: minority groups search more intensely for homo gamous mates, and spend more resources to socialize their offspring. This p attern generally induces a dynamics of the distribution of ethnic and relig ious traits which converges to a culturally heterogeneous stationary popula tion. Existing empirical evidence bearing directly and indirectly on the im plications of the model is discussed.