The new research of Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) has highlighted the significance of inter-ethnic marriages in Pakistan, a country with a diverse ethnic spectrum. Such marriages play a crucial role in promoting assimilation, social cohesion, and stability, thereby blurring tensions arising from ethnic differences, the research findings from the PIDE BASICS 1 survey indicated. The survey revealed that language, closely tied to ethnic background, has a profound impact on personal identities, which can sometimes be divisive and undermine unity within the larger identity. The survey employed a new approach to measure ethnic exogamy and homogamy by asking respondents three questions related to the ethnic backgrounds of their parents and the language spoken in their everyday lives. The results revealed that only a small proportion (1.5%) of marriages in Pakistan are ethnically exogamous, indicating a strong trend of intra-ethnic marriages. However, slight variations exist among different languages, with Urdu, Potohari, Brahui, and Brushaski showing slightly higher rates of exogamy.
Additionally, gender differences were observed in languages such as Urdu, Shina, and Kashmiri. The study also examined the language preferences of children in families with different ethnic backgrounds and found that when parents share the same ethnicity, 92.3% of children spoke the same language as their parents. However, children of exogamous parents exhibited a mixed pattern, with some languages influenced more by the mother’s language and others by the father’s language. These findings shed light on the role of inter-ethnic marriages and language dynamics in Pakistan’s social fabric.
