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Abstract:
Historically, intermarriage has had important consequences on the ethnic fabric of Malaysian society. Despite this, there is a paucity of literature on the subject. This paper aims to fill the void by assessing the extent of intermarriages in Malaysia and how such marriages may have contributed to the development of plurality. The findings are based on a two per cent sample of the 2000 Population Census. It would appear that intermarriage is a function of opportunity as dictated by diversity of the society. Intermarriage rates are higher in ethnically more diverse East Malaysia than in Peninsular Malaysia, implying that social distances between ethnic groups are much shorter in East Malaysia. Age, gender, education, occupation, place of residence, religion, migrant effects and ethnicity all materially affect the probability of intermarriage. There is some evidence, but only among certain ethnic groups and gender, for the status exchange hypothesis that minorities with high socio-economic status who intermarry exchange this with higher social status of the dominant groups, but not for the hypothesis that high socio-economic status is more important than race in intermarriage.
Keywords: Endogamy, intermarriage, Malaysia
JEL classification: J12, Z13
1. Introduction
Historically, intermarriage has had important consequences on the ethnic fabric of Malaysian society. In the eighteenth century, Sino-Malay marriage was not uncommon, producing in Malacca the distinct Baba group which is culturally and linguistically more Malay than Chinese but religion-wise, diverse. Yen (1982) noted that Sino-Malay marriage reduced with the increase in Chinese female immigrants at the turn of the nineteenth century. Vlieland (1934), the Superintendent of the 193 1 Census of British Malaya, highlighted geographical location as the main factor that has contributed to the diversity of Malayan society with such varied groups as Arab and Indian traders, Chinese traders and seafarers, Sumatran and Javanese migrants, European administrators and Portuguese adventurers. In describing the plurality of the society in Malaya, Vlieland (1934: 4-5), observed thus:
"The greater part of the Malay Peninsula (i.e., all but the British colony of the Straits Settlements) is, in constitutional theory and political practice as well as in name, the country of the Malay; in actual fact the whole peninsula is a kind of no man's land in which geographic controls have produced, through the medium...