Reader Mostafa Sabet points out a possible partial explanation for the data about black men marrying white women more often than black women marry white men, and Asian women marrying white men more often than Asian men marry white women: Women tend to prefer men who are taller than they are; blacks are on average taller than whites, who tend to be taller than Asians; that alone will cause at least some disparity of the sort that we observe (though of course it’s impossible to tell without more research how much of the disparity it causes).
I couldn’t get statistics on average American height by race — if any of you have any pointers to real data on this, I’d love to see them. But my sense is that indeed blacks are on average taller than whites, who are taller than Asians.
UPDATE: Hmm; reader David Bitkower points to the data available via this page, which suggests that American black men may be on average a little bit shorter than American white men. If that’s so, then that of course undermines the theory mentioned above as to blacks and whites.
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