What Percentage of Black Women Are Married to Black Men
Futurity Kid. Writer manuscript; available in PMC 2016 Apr 29.
Published in last edited form as:
Future Child. 2015 Fall; 25(2): 89–109.
PMCID: PMC4850739
NIHMSID: NIHMS777225
The Growing Racial and Indigenous Separate in U.South. Spousal relationship Patterns
R. Kelly Raley
Professor of sociology and faculty research associate at the Population Enquiry Center, University of Texas at Austin
Megan M. Sweeney
Professor of sociology and a faculty affiliate of the California Center for Population Research at the University of California, Los Angeles
Danielle Wondra
Ph.D. Candidate in sociology and a graduate affiliate of the California Center for Population Research at the University of California, Los Angeles
Summary
The The states shows striking racial and indigenous differences in spousal relationship patterns. Compared to both white and Hispanic women, black women marry later in life, are less likely to marry at all, and have college rates of marital instability.
Kelly Raley, Megan Sweeney, and Danielle Wondra begin by reviewing common explanations for these differences, which first gained momentum in the 1960s (though patterns of marital instability diverged before than patterns of spousal relationship formation). Structural factors—for example, failing employment prospects and ascent incarceration rates for unskilled black men—clearly play a role, the authors write, merely such factors don't fully explicate the divergence in marriage patterns. In particular, they don't tell us why we meet racial and ethnic differences in marriage beyond all levels of education, and not just among the unskilled.
Raley, Sweeney and, Wondra argue that the racial gap in marriage that emerged in the 1960s, and has grown since, is due partly to wide changes in ideas near family arrangements that have made marriage optional. As the imperative to ally has fallen, alongside other changes in the economy that have increased women'due south economic contributions to the household, socioeconomic continuing has become increasingly important for matrimony. Race continues to be associated with economic disadvantage, and thus every bit economical factors take become more than relevant to marriage and marital stability, the racial gap in marriage has grown.
Today'southward racial and ethnic differences in children'south family experiences are hitting. In 2014, seventy percent of non-Hispanic white children (ages 0–18) and roughly 59 percent of Hispanic children were living with both of their biological parents. The aforementioned was true for only a footling more than one-tertiary of blackness children.1 Although many children raised in single-parent households thrive and prosper, at the population level, single-parent families are associated with poorer outcomes for children, such as low educational attainment and teen childbearing.two Some social scientists argue that single-parent families may damage children's development directly, past reducing fathers' and mothers' power to invest in their children. Others propose that mutual factors, such every bit economic distress, contribute both to family instability and to developmental problems in children.3 That is, in this view, family structure itself is non the source of children'south disadvantages. Regardless, even if many single-parent families function well and produce salubrious children, population-level differences in family stability are associated with distress for both parents and children.
To explicate racial and ethnic variation in children'southward families, we must better understand the differences in wedlock patterns across groups. Nosotros begin past describing racial and ethnic differences in matrimony germination and stability, then review common explanations for these differences. We also discuss how these gaps have evolved over fourth dimension and how they relate to social class. To appointment, many explanations take focused on the poor and working class, even though racial and ethnic differences in family unit formation exist across the class spectrum. Nosotros argue that the racial gap in marriage that emerged in the 1960s, and has grown since, is due partly to wide changes in ideas well-nigh family arrangements that take made wedlock optional (but yet desirable). Every bit the imperative to marry has fallen, alongside other changes in the economy that accept increased women's economic contributions to the household, socioeconomic standing has get increasingly important for marriage. Race continues to be associated with economic disadvantage, and thus as economical factors have become more than relevant to marriage and marital stability, the racial gap in marriage has grown.
Although we primarily focus on black-white differences in marriage, we also consider contemporary family unit patterns for other racial and ethnic groups (Hispanics, Asians, and Native Americans). New waves of migration have added to the multifariousness of the U.s.a., and blacks are no longer the largest minority group. Moreover, considering the family patterns of other minority groups, whether disadvantaged or comparatively well-off, can give us insight into the sources of black-white differences. Our power to clarify historical union trends among Hispanics, nevertheless, is limited due to changing measurement strategies in federal data, shifts over time in the characteristics of migrant populations, and the fact that the marriage patterns of migrants differ from those of U.S.-born Hispanics.
Blackness-White Differences in Marriage and Marital Stability
Young adults in the United States are waiting longer to ally than at whatsoever other time in the past century. Women's median age at first union currently stands at 27, compared to a median matrimony age of 24 as recently as 1990 and a depression of only over 20 in 1955.four Although social scientists debate whether today's young people will eventually marry in the same numbers as earlier generations, marriage remains commonplace. In 2013, more than eight women in ten in their early 40s were or had ever been married.5
Contemporary Differences
At the same time, racial and indigenous differences in marriage are hit. The median age at first wedlock is roughly four years higher for black than for white women: 30 versus 26 years, respectively, in 2010.6 At all ages, black Americans brandish lower matrimony rates than practice other racial and ethnic groups (see table i, panel A). Consequently, a far lower proportion of black women accept married at to the lowest degree once by age 40. Our tabulations of data from the U.S. Demography Agency's American Community Survey for 2008–12 show that almost nine out of ten white and Asian/Pacific Islander women had always been married past their early on 40s, every bit had more than eight in 10 Hispanic women and more than than three-quarters of American Indian/Native Alaskan women. Yet fewer than two-thirds of black women reported having married at least once by the same age.
Table one
Women's Age-Specific Rates of Offset Spousal relationship and Divorce by Race, Ethnicity, and Birth
| Panel A. Matrimony | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Historic period | White | Black | Asian/Pacific Islander | American Indian/Native Alaskan | Hispanic, Total | Hispanic, U.S. born | Hispanic, foreign built-in |
| 15–xix | 8.seven | v.0 | 8.5 | 20.3 | 16.vii | 13.ane | 32.6 |
| 20–24 | 58.9 | 23.0 | 41.4 | 53.5 | 59.ane | 50.four | 81.3 |
| 25–29 | 115.6 | 43.0 | 133.7 | 76.half dozen | 81.0 | 75.9 | 89.2 |
| xxx–34 | 130.vi | 47.6 | 152.v | 74.nine | 87.4 | 83.0 | 92.1 |
| 35–39 | 123.0 | 44.six | 129.1 | 70.5 | 80.4 | 72.seven | 86.8 |
| 40–44 | 111.6 | 39.4 | 100.five | 51.8 | 77.9 | 72.six | 82.two |
| | |||||||
| Panel B. Divorce | |||||||
| Age | White | Black | Asian/Pacific Islander | American Indian/Native Alaskan | Hispanic, Total | Hispanic, U.Southward. built-in | Hispanic, foreign born |
| | |||||||
| 20–24 | 48.44 | 40.13 | 12.23 | 63.61 | 26.79 | 36.74 | sixteen.thirteen |
| 25–29 | 38.80 | 44.29 | 13.23 | 52.02 | 26.71 | xl.43 | 15.31 |
| 30–34 | 31.60 | 44.43 | 15.95 | twoscore.fifteen | 25.03 | 37.09 | 16.83 |
| 35–39 | 29.66 | 41.xx | 12.98 | 41.58 | 23.lxx | 36.31 | xvi.43 |
| 40–44 | 26.33 | 38.86 | thirteen.07 | 48.threescore | 21.47 | 30.xv | 16.78 |
In addition to later historic period at get-go marriage and lower proportions ever marrying, black women also take relatively loftier rates of marital instability (see tabular array 1, panel B). At nearly every historic period, divorce rates are higher for black than for white women, and they are more often than not everyman among Asian and strange-born Hispanic women.7 Recent demographic projections propose that these racial and ethnic gaps in marriage and marital dissolution volition proceed growing.viii
Thus far nosotros've relied primarily on data from the U.S. Census and other similar sources (for example, the American Community Survey). These sources offer historical continuity and large sample sizes, but they generally offering only limited information about women'south marital histories and background characteristics. Moreover, they nigh certainly underestimate the size of racial gaps in marital instability, as blackness women tend to transition more slowly than white women exercise from separation to legal divorce.9 For our concluding expect at gimmicky marriage patterns, we now turn to a smaller data set, the National Survey of Family Growth, to get a meliorate sense of how women's accumulated life experiences of wedlock vary beyond race, ethnicity, and nativity. This data gear up contains retrospective histories on the formation and dissolution of cohabiting and marital relationships for a nationally representative sample of women aged 15–44. Tabular array 2 displays these results.
Table 2
Women's Marital Life Profiles at Ages 40–44: Percentage with Life Histories of No Union, Stable Marriage, or Unstable Marriage
| All Women | Per centum of Ever-Married Women Experiencing Unstable Wedlock | Percentage of Unstably Married Women Who Have … | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unstable Marriage | ||||||||
| Race, Ethnicity, and Nascence | No Marriage | Stable Spousal relationship | Total | Married Only Once | Married 2+ Times | Married Just One time | Married 2+Times | |
| White, not-Hispanic | 7 | 54 | 38 | 16 | 23 | 41 | 41 | 59 |
| Black, non- Hispanic | 34 | 29 | 35 | 21 | fifteen | 53 | 58 | 42 |
| Hispanic, total | 14 | 48 | 39 | eighteen | 21 | 45 | 46 | 54 |
| Hispanic, strange born | eleven | 48 | 41 | 19 | 21 | 46 | 48 | 52 |
| Hispanic, U.S. built-in | 21 | 46 | 34 | 15 | 19 | 42 | 43 | 57 |
Consequent with other sources, we again see lower levels of wedlock amidst black women than amid white or Hispanic women. Among those who exercise marry, black women experience more marital instability than do white or Hispanic women. About 60 pct of white women who have always married are still married in their early 40s, compared to 55 per centum of Hispanic women but only 45 percent of black women. After accounting for women who have never married at all, then, roughly half of white and Hispanic women in their early 40s are stably married, compared to less than a 3rd of blackness women the same age. The nature of instability likewise varies by race: Among women who've experienced any spousal relationship that concluded (in tabular array 2, our "unstable marriage" group), black women are more likely to have been married merely once (58 pct, versus 42 percent who have been married two or more than times), whereas white women are more than likely to have married multiple times (59 percent, versus 41 percent who married only once.)
Historical Trends
Although social scientists sometimes attribute racial differences in family patterns to long-run historical influences such as the legacy of slavery, marriage was common amidst black families in the early on 20th century.x Thus the racial divergence we see now in union germination is relatively recent. From 1890 through 1940, black women tended to ally earlier than white women did, and in the mid-20th century first matrimony timing was like for blackness and white women.11 In 1950, blackness women aged forty–44 were really more likely to accept ever married than were white women of the same age (effigy 1). Racial differences in wedlock remained small as recently as 1970, when 94.8 percent of white women and 92.2 per centum of blackness women had ever been married.12
Pct of U.S. Women Anile xl–44 Years Who Had Ever Married, by Year, Race, and Ethnicity
Source: 1930–2000 U.S. Decennial Census and 2012 American Community Survey, Integrated Public Apply Microdata Serial.
The likelihood of e'er marrying by midlife (which we ascertain every bit age 40–44) conveys important information about the nature of group differences in marriage, yet these figures reverberate age-specific marriage rates that prevailed at earlier points in time. If we understand the historical timing of the racial departure in union rates with greater precision, nosotros may shed light on what acquired the modify and variability in family patterns. Sociologists Robert Mare and Christopher Winship report that during the 1960s, matrimony rates began to decline much more rapidly for black women than for white women across all age groups.13 Thus looking at historic period-specific marriage rates suggests that the racial divergence in marriage patterns gained momentum almost x years before than figure 1 suggests, after about 1960.
Although before the 1960s age at start marriage and the proportion of women ever married were similar among whites and blacks, blacks had higher rates of marital dissolution during this period. If we examine the percentage of ever-married white and black women who were currently married and living with their husbands at midlife, the historical story about trends in the racial marriage gap changes somewhat. Figure 2 displays these results. We now meet large racial differences in the likelihood of being married even as early as 1930, when only 69 percent of always-married black women in their early on 40s were married and living with a spouse, compared with roughly 88 percent of white women the aforementioned age. Some of this deviation reflects higher rates of bloodshed among black men, but some is due to higher rates of separation. In the early 1900s, very small percentages of women, whether blackness or white, were officially divorced. Somewhat more were married merely non living with their spouses, though the percentage was modest by today's standards. However, the proportion was twice as loftier for black women as for whites.fourteen Betwixt 1940 and 1980, both white and black women experienced large increases in divorce, but the increase occurred sooner and more steeply for black women.15 By 2012, roughly 73 percent of white women in their early 40s who had e'er married were still married and living with their spouses, compared with just over half (52.seven percent) of black women the same age.16
Percentage of U.S. Women Who Are Currently Married, Spouse Present, past Year, Race, Ethnicity: Women Aged twoscore–44 Who Had Ever Married
Source: 1930–2000 U.S. Decennial Demography and 2012 American Customs Survey, Integrated Public Use Microdata Series.
In short, we tin learn much from taking a longer-run view of the black-white union gap. We see that the racial gap in wedlock formation was minimal through about 1960, both in terms of wedlock ages and rates, merely that the higher rate of marital instability among black than among white women has deeper historical roots. Divorce rates increased before and more steeply among black than among white women. Later on nearly 1970, we see marital instability continue to diverge between black and white women, only we likewise brainstorm to encounter a new racial gap in the likelihood of ever marrying, driven by a decline in marriage formation among blacks. Equally nosotros'll see beneath, when we explore variation past social form, a like pattern has appeared more than recently amid less-educated whites.
Explaining the Blackness-White Marriage Gap
Social scientists can't fully business relationship for the racial and indigenous differences in marriage, even though these differences have been intensely debated for decades. Given the big differences between them, marriage patterns of white and black women have been of detail interest. Empirical research best supports explanations for the black-white marriage gap that involve labor market disparities and other structural disadvantages that black people confront, specially black men. These explanations are rooted in classic demographic arguments about the affordability of union and most imbalances in the numbers of men and women available for marriage.17
In their highly influential 1987 volume The Truly Disadvantaged, sociologists William Julius Wilson and Kathryn Neckerman hypothesized that black women's depression marriage rates in the 1970s and 1980s were due to a arrears of marriageable men.18 An enormous refuse in unskilled manufacturing jobs during the 1970s and 1980s striking black men particularly hard.19 The black-white unemployment gap grew rapidly, and by 1985 unemployment rates for black men aged 25–54 were ii times higher than for white men in the same historic period range. Among men aged xvi–24 the racial disparity was even greater, with the unemployment rate for black men three times that of white men.20 Blackness men were likewise much more likely to dice or be incarcerated, and this (combined with low rates of interracial marriage) depressed the number of men available for black women to marry. Unemployment rates for black men continue to be much college than for white men, and black men'southward rates of incarceration have increased dramatically since 1980, suggesting that these factors are nonetheless relevant today. Indeed, in the early 2000s, more i-third of young black men who hadn't attended higher were incarcerated, and nearly twice as many black men nether age forty had a prison record than a bachelor'southward degree. Overall, blackness men are vii times more likely than white men to be incarcerated.21
Yet men's demographic availability, unemployment, and low earnings don't completely explicate blackness-white differences in marriage.22 Moreover, black spousal relationship rates barbarous at the same time that racial discrimination was declining and black men'south wages were growing. Between 1960 and 1980, employed blacks saw existent increases in wages relative to whites, partly due to increases in their educational attainment and partly because returns to education also increased.23 During this fourth dimension, the proportion of blacks who were in the centre class (defined equally between 200 and 499 percent of the federal poverty line) increased substantially.24
Not all black men were reaping the benefits of increasing opportunity that came via civil rights legislation. As we've seen, blackness unemployment rates were growing, and the racial disparities are even greater if nosotros account for the high rates of incarceration amid less-educated black men.25 However, the proportion of blacks who are poor is lower today than in 1960, and blacks' median household income, after adjusting for inflation, is higher.26 Black marriage rates began to autumn even while the black middle grade was growing, and they connected falling later 1980 fifty-fifty as blackness men's unemployment rates and real wages improved (although not relative to white men'southward). We'll return to this problematic mismatch betwixt historical trends in marriage and labor force patterns toward the end of this article.
Other explanations for the black-white marriage gap focus on additional constraints on the availability of partners for black women. For example, women tend to ally partners who have accumulated at least as much schooling as they have.27 Among both blacks and whites in the United States today, young women tend to be more educated than young men.28 This constrains the pools of desirable partners for matrimony. But the education gap between men and women is larger for blacks, making this constraint particularly important for black women. Moreover, rates of intermarriage among blacks differ substantially by gender.29 Black men are more than twice as likely as blackness women to marry someone of a different race.30 This, too, constrains the pool of potential partners for blackness women.31
Finally, some explanations emphasize racial differences in the ratio of men's to women'south wages, equally opposed to men'due south earnings alone. A specialization model of marriage suggests that the gains to matrimony are greatest when men's wages are high relative to women's, so that men can specialize past working in the labor marketplace while women work in the dwelling.32 The ratio of men'south to women's wages is much smaller among blacks than whites. Thus the specialization model suggests that marriage rates should be lower for blacks. Although family scholars are quick to point out that black marriages have historically been less characterized by specialization, considerable evidence suggests that the expectation that men volition provide for their families economically is potent across groups.33 Yet the ratio of men's to women'southward wages can't explain lower marriage rates among blacks. Declines in black women's marriage rates between 1968 and 1996 don't track changes over time in women's wages relative to men's. Union rates fell, while the female person-to-male wage ratio remained similar across time.34 Moreover, other analyses show that both women'south and men's earnings are positively associated with marriage and that the positive association between women's earnings and marriage has been increasing over time, suggesting that the statement that gender specialization supports marriage may be outdated.35
Although differences in men'south (and women's) employment, earnings, incarceration, and education contribute to the racial gap in union, they give an incomplete account. We've argued elsewhere that taking a broader view of union and how it relates to other social institutions may uncover additional sources of black-white differences in wedlock.36 The U.s. has get increasingly stratified by course, in terms of earnings, wealth, and occupational and residential segregation. Consequently, the sources of racial inequality likely vary by social class.37
Social Class and the Racial Gap in Marriage
If rising unemployment and incarceration amidst blackness men fully explained the racial gap in marriage, we would expect racial differences in marriage among people with the same level of education to exist small; we would also look such differences to be concentrated amidst economically disadvantaged blacks. After all, black men without whatsoever college education were afflicted nigh by both trends.38 Yet, although the racial union gap is largest among those who didn't go to college, we see a gap at all levels of the educational distribution. For example, among college-graduate women in 2012, 71 percent of blacks had e'er married, compared to 88 percent of whites (see table 3). Moreover, while nosotros see differences by education in the proportion of black women in their early 40s who have always married, there are no clear educational differences among white women. We see a like blueprint in the proportion of men who have always married, although data from 2012 testify some testify that white men with a high schoolhouse degree or less are moving away from wedlock.
Table 3
Percentage of Women and Men Ages 40–44 Who Had Ever Married, by Year, Race, and Education
| Women | Men | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1980 | 1990 | 2000 | 2012 | 1980 | 1990 | 2000 | 2012 | |
| White, Non-Hispanic | ||||||||
| Total | 95.8 | 93.4 | 90.9 | 87.nine | 93.9 | 91.4 | 86.3 | 81.6 |
| <=12 years | 96.7 | 95.one | 92.4 | 87.ane | 94.0 | 91.iv | 85.6 | 77.six |
| thirteen–15 years | 96.0 | 94.5 | 91.6 | 88.nine | 94.6 | 92.4 | 86.vi | 82.half-dozen |
| 16+ years | 91.1 | 89.four | 87.8 | 87.9 | 93.0 | 90.5 | 87.two | 85.v |
| Black, Non-Hispanic | ||||||||
| Total | 88.7 | 83.two | 72.eight | 62.four | 88.5 | 82.6 | 73.7 | 65.3 |
| <=12 years | 88.four | 81.8 | 70.0 | 55.viii | 87.7 | 79.viii | 69.5 | 57.6 |
| 13–15 years | 91.5 | 84.9 | 75.vii | 64.half-dozen | 91.3 | 86.2 | 79.4 | 73.1 |
| sixteen+ years | 86.9 | 85.0 | 77.1 | 70.nine | ninety.4 | 86.four | 82.nine | 76.5 |
| Hispanic, Full | ||||||||
| Total | 93.iii | 90.half-dozen | 88.0 | 82.7 | 92.four | 89.ix | 85.4 | 77.3 |
| <=12 years | 93.9 | xc.iv | 88.2 | 81.0 | 92.4 | 89.2 | 85.ane | 76.0 |
| xiii–15 years | 91.8 | 92.4 | 87.9 | 85.five | 92.nine | 92.three | 86.7 | 79.9 |
| 16+ years | 87.1 | 87.8 | 87.ii | 85.viii | 92.2 | 89.2 | 85.v | eighty.8 |
| Hispanic, Foreign Born | ||||||||
| Total | 93.1 | ninety.8 | 89.4 | 84.7 | 92.8 | 90.7 | 87.9 | 79.half-dozen |
| <=12 years | 93.8 | 90.2 | 89.seven | 83.4 | 93.0 | 90.iii | 87.5 | 78.7 |
| 13–fifteen years | 89.ii | 94.i | 88.7 | 89.0 | 91.eight | 92.v | 89.6 | 82.seven |
| 16+ years | xc.7 | xc.6 | 88.0 | 88.0 | 92.0 | 90.eight | 88.viii | 83.0 |
| Hispanic, U.Due south. Born | ||||||||
| Full | 93.4 | 90.four | 86.ii | 79.half dozen | 92.2 | 89.0 | 81.8 | 73.v |
| <=12 years | 93.nine | ninety.6 | 85.8 | 75.1 | 91.9 | 87.vii | 80.eight | 69.7 |
| thirteen–fifteen years | 93.nine | 91.half-dozen | 87.3 | 83.0 | 93.6 | 92.1 | 84.4 | 77.half-dozen |
| sixteen+ years | 82.8 | 85.6 | 86.5 | 84.0 | 92.four | 88.0 | 82.1 | 79.0 |
But, every bit we've argued, looking at the proportion of people who are married by midlife doesn't capture the virtually recent changes in marriage patterns among younger women. To overcome this trouble, nosotros calculated age-specific wedlock rates using data from the 2008–12 American Community Survey (see figures 3a and 3b). Here we see signs that white women with a high school degree or less are beginning to retreat from wedlock. Starting in their early 20s, white women with a bachelor's caste have college marriage rates than white women with lower levels of education. In fact, matrimony rates for higher-educated white women in their late 20s and early 30s are higher than those for white women with less teaching at whatsoever age. Their college wedlock rates persist through the peak marrying ages, until their mid-40s. This is a dramatic alter from white women's marriage patterns in the late 1970s, when summit historic period-specific marriage rates for less-educated women were considerably higher than those ever observed among college-educated women.39 In the near future, the proportion who have e'er married at age xl may fall among white women with less than a college degree, both absolutely and relative to their better-educated counterparts.40
Historic period-Specific Beginning Marriage Rates, by Education: White Women
Source: 2008–12 American Community Survey, Integrated Public Use Microdata Series.
Annotation: Rates are calculated as the number of marriages per 1,000 unmarried women.
Historic period-Specific Starting time Marriage Rates, by Education: Black Women
Source: 2008–12 American Customs Survey, Integrated Public Utilise Microdata Series.
Note: Rates are calculated as the number of marriages per 1,000 unmarried women.
We find further evidence that white women's marriage patterns diverge by education when we consider marital stability, as table 4 shows. In 2012, the likelihood that always-married white women were currently married in their early 40s was much lower among the least educated than among the most educated (65.v per centum versus 82.seven percent, respectively). This reflects growing socioeconomic differences in divorce risk, which have likewise been documented elsewhere.41 This difference by didactics in the endurance of marriage amongst white women is relatively recent, but it has deeper historical roots among black women. Dorsum in 1980, there was no clear human relationship betwixt educational level and the likelihood that ever-married white women would be currently married at midlife (see table four). The story is quite different for black women. Though table four again shows that stable marriage is lower overall among ever-married blackness women than among e'er-married white women, within each educational grouping, marital instability increased earlier and more dramatically among black women with a high school degree or less. Fifty-fifty in 1980, always-married black women with low levels of educational activity were less probable than the relatively more educated to be married at midlife.
Table 4
Percent of Women and Men Ages twoscore–55 Who Are Currently Married (Spouse Present) amongst Those Ever Married, by Year, Race, and Didactics
| Women | Men | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1980 | 1990 | 2000 | 2012 | 1980 | 1990 | 2000 | 2012 | |
| White, Not-Hispanic | ||||||||
| Total | 83.9 | 78.3 | 77.4 | 73.5 | 88.4 | 82.6 | 79.2 | 76.viii |
| <=12 years | 84.1 | 78.3 | 74.5 | 65.5 | 88.i | 79.7 | 73.9 | 68.ii |
| 13–xv years | 82.v | 76.1 | 76.0 | 69.nine | 88.0 | 80.nine | 79.six | 76.2 |
| 16+ years | 84.5 | 81.i | 83.4 | 82.7 | 89.four | 86.9 | 87.8 | 86.4 |
| Blackness, Not-Hispanic | ||||||||
| Total | 55.six | 51.v | 52.6 | 52.seven | 72.9 | 64.2 | 61.iv | threescore.v |
| <=12 years | 54.5 | 49.three | 49.5 | 45.half dozen | 71.5 | 60.ix | 55.nine | 53.6 |
| thirteen–15 years | 56.6 | 50.5 | 53.1 | 52.3 | 75.0 | 65.3 | 65.8 | 61.4 |
| 16+ years | 65.7 | 60.nine | 60.nine | 62.8 | lxxx.9 | 73.four | 74.9 | 74.5 |
| Hispanic, Total | ||||||||
| Full | 75.8 | 68.eight | 71.2 | 68.9 | 83.0 | 75.8 | 72.8 | 73.one |
| <=12 years | 75.4 | 69.1 | 71.1 | 68.half dozen | 82.ii | 74.6 | 71.3 | 71.6 |
| xiii–xv years | 77.3 | 68.one | 68.1 | 64.half-dozen | 83.4 | 77.1 | 74.1 | 73.8 |
| 16+ years | 78.3 | 68.1 | 76.1 | 75.6 | 88.five | 79.3 | 80.1 | 79.8 |
| Hispanic, Foreign Built-in | ||||||||
| Total | 79.2 | 72.5 | 74.7 | 71.viii | 83.0 | 75.one | 75.0 | 75.6 |
| <=12 years | 78.vii | 72.7 | 75.0 | 72.3 | 81.2 | 73.7 | 74.1 | 75.ane |
| 13–15 years | 83.4 | 71.3 | 70.7 | 66.five | 88.5 | 77.1 | 77.7 | 75.five |
| xvi+ years | 79.six | 72.four | 77.3 | 75.5 | 88.six | 81.i | 79.7 | 79.two |
| Hispanic, U.Southward. Born | ||||||||
| Total | 73.1 | 65.four | 66.8 | 64.1 | 83.0 | 76.6 | 69.ii | 68.7 |
| <=12 years | 73.0 | 65.1 | 64.8 | 58.3 | 82.9 | 75.9 | 66.0 | 62.3 |
| thirteen–xv years | 72.5 | 66.4 | 66.3 | 63.2 | eighty.4 | 77.2 | 71.2 | 72.three |
| 16+ years | 76.6 | 64.iv | 75.two | 75.7 | 88.4 | 77.9 | 80.v | 80.3 |
To summarize, increases in divorce preceded declines in marriage, beginning kickoff among the most disadvantaged blacks. Whites and blacks of all classes have experienced delays in matrimony, but declines in the proportion who take ever married at historic period forty–44 also appeared first for blacks with low levels of education. By 1980, we began to see an educational divergence in family patterns for whites. Start, the college-educated saw declines in divorce, while those without college maintained high levels of divorce. More than recently, whites with the lowest levels of didactics are beginning to experience delays in marriage relative to college-educated women, and an increasing proportion are likely to never marry.
Explanations for the Blackness-White Marriage Gap past Education
Black-white differences in union appear at all levels of educational activity, suggesting that something more than than grade status is at play. At the aforementioned time, we've seen that class status has become increasingly associated with matrimony patterns. Among black women, and more than recently among white women, lower levels of education have get associated with higher levels of divorce and declines in union. This increasing connectedness betwixt education and the formation of stable families suggests that the structural forces that generate racial differences in marriage and marital stability might vary across different educational groups.42
Equally we've said, classic arguments that link lower union rates amidst black women to a shortage of marriageable men tend to focus on differences in men'south employment prospects and incarceration. Because unemployment and incarceration are highest among blackness men who are disadvantaged to brainstorm with, we would await these factors to suppress marriage rates most strongly among poor and working-class black women.
A shortage of marriageable men may exist role of the explanation for low marriage rates among meliorate-educated black women, but it's harder to see how the ratio of men to women tin explain low marriage rates among better-educated black men. Some scholars argue that the scarcity of better-off black men relative to blackness women, which is compounded past black men'southward relatively lower levels of teaching and higher rates of interracial marriage, may increase black men'due south bargaining power and make marriage less bonny to them equally an pick in early on machismo.43 This argument assumes, however, that men would rather have informal relationships with women than marry, despite having access to a larger pool of women eligible for union. Considering almost all studies linking the gender ratio to marriage have focused on what predicts marriage among women, nosotros don't accept skillful evidence on this point. A true test of this argument would analyze men's marriage.
Some other possibility is that both eye-grade black men and middle-form blackness women have more than problem finding spouses because their social worlds consist by and large of people who are non likely to connect them to potential mates. Marriages between black people and people of other races proceed to be rare.44 More than broadly, our social networks tend to exist homophilous; that is, they include simply people of our own race.45 Even friendships that cross racial boundaries tend to be less close and involve fewer shared activities.46 Although the social networks that form around work may provide some access to potential mates, this is likely to be less truthful for blacks who work in mostly white environments.47 For example, research shows that blackness adolescent girls who go to schools where the student torso is generally white are less likely than white girls to be involved in romantic relationships.48
Finally, many studies take documented important racial differences in the economical returns to schooling. Every bit young adults, black men take more trouble transitioning into stable full-fourth dimension employment than white men do, and this racial difference is particularly pronounced amongst men with lower levels of education. In early adulthood, fifty-fifty college-educated black men earn less than white men, however.49 These differences in career entry alone help explain why black men are slower to marry than white men. But a difficult transition to stable employment is an even greater barrier to spousal relationship for black men than information technology is for white men.
Blacks' greater sensitivity to labor force transitions might be explained at least partly by the fact that black families accumulate less wealth than white families do. For example, home ownership is less likely to lead to wealth among blacks than among whites, because of high levels of residential segregation and a general reluctance amid whites to live near blacks.50 Thus young black couples are less likely to have a nest egg to fall back on if they lose their jobs. They are also less likely to be able to rely on their parents for back up during rough times. Research shows that differences in wealth can account for some of the racial gap in marriage, especially among men.51
In sum, differences in employment, earnings, and wealth might account for a sizeable portion of the contemporary racial gap in marriage. Additionally, persistent patterns of racial stratification, such as high rates of residential segregation (which affects the accumulation of wealth, as well equally school quality and immature men's take a chance of incarceration), combine with economical disadvantage to depress black matrimony rates today. Yet we still don't know why black marriage began to fall in the middle of the 20th century and why information technology continued to do so through good economic times and bad.
Another puzzle is that Hispanic marriage patterns more closely resemble those of whites than those of blacks, despite the fact that Hispanic and black Americans confront similar levels of economic disadvantage.52 A mutual explanation is that a large proportion of the Hispanic population in the Usa consists of first or second generation immigrants who come from collectivist countries where the imperative to marry remains strong.53 Yet studies that have tried to link race- or ethnic-specific attitudes and beliefs to variation in spousal relationship patterns have generally not found articulate supporting bear witness. Compared to whites, black women and (especially) men are less probable to say they desire to ally, merely so are Hispanic women.54 Moreover, differences in attitudes about union can't explain lower rates of marriage among blacks.55 Even if the attitudes that immigrants bring from other countries beacon Hispanic marriage rates, over time and across generations Hispanic women in the U.s.a. feel lower levels of matrimony and higher rates of unmarried childbearing. In the 3rd generation and beyond, Hispanic women'due south family patterns increasingly resemble those of black Americans. Exposure to economical disadvantage in the The states, then, combined with the widespread individualistic ethos here, somewhen trumps whatsoever pro-wedlock disposition Hispanics might have had.56
The Growing Importance of Economical Status for Marriage
To sympathize the dramatic declines in marriage among blacks, we must consider broad changes in the labor forcefulness as well equally changing ideas about gender and family relationships. These changes made employment and earnings, particularly those of women, more than important for forming stable families. Irresolute ideas most family unit affected both whites and blacks, but they afflicted blackness families earlier and more than strongly because blacks were and continue to exist more economically vulnerable. Since 1980, as economic restructuring has eroded opportunities for less-educated whites, they too are seeing dramatic changes in family unit life.
Over the past century, families in the Usa and virtually of Europe accept undergone sweeping changes across all social and demographic groups. The age at marriage rose, nonmarital cohabitation became common, and divorce rates skyrocketed. Some demographers refer to these wide changes in family life as the 2d Demographic Transition. (The original Demographic Transition was the shift from high birth and death rates to depression birth and expiry rates experienced first by Western Europe and somewhen past all countries). Because these changes accept occurred in both proficient economical times and bad, and have affected all socioeconomic groups, many believe that changing ideas almost the family have helped drive them.57
For case, during the 1960s and 1970s divorce and premarital sex both became more widely accustomed.58 Changes in attitudes toward divorce appear to have followed rises in divorce, suggesting something other than growing acceptance was responsible for the rise in divorce that started around the beginning of the 20th century.59 Nevertheless, rising divorce rates combined with growing acceptance of premarital sex might have encouraged people to delay union and conjugate outside of marriage.60 Altogether, this reinforced the notion that decisions to ally or divorce are a private business concern, non something subject to social sanction.
Shifts in the labor strength likely also contributed to the Second Demographic Transition'south changes in family life. The service-based economy'due south growth since 1950 has enhanced the incentives to get an instruction for both men and women, but especially for women.61 Because marriage in early on adulthood would interfere with college and starting a career, men and women accept been delaying marriage for the past 50 years.62 Withal, until recently, most women take continued to marry eventually.
Since 1980, marriage and divorce patterns take become increasingly stratified past class. For example, in the late 1970s, the percentage of marriages that dissolved within ten years was not that different amongst women with a college degree (29 percentage) than among women with just a high school diploma (35 percent), a difference of only 6 percentage points. For marriages starting time in the early on 1990s, this gap had grown to over 20 percent points.63 Every bit we've noted, differences in marriage are also get-go to emerge past social form. Historically, college-educated women were less likely to marry.64 But showtime with people built-in in 1955–64, college-educated women became more likely than other women to ever marry.65 Recent projections suggest that the educational gap in marriage volition go along to widen over time.66 Other evidence has shown that college-earning women are also increasingly more than likely to marry.67
Young adults who don't earn a college degree face diminishing prospects in today'southward information economy. Wage disparities by education have grown essentially since 1980, by and large due to the growing demand for college-educated workers.68 Compared to their more highly educated counterparts, people without a college degree are less likely to achieve the economic security they feel they need for spousal relationship, and those who exercise marry are more probable to divorce.
In sum, in the early part of the 20th century, urbanization and other shifts in the economy occurred alongside gradual but modest increases in divorce, especially among blacks. In the years immediately post-obit World War 2, unanticipated economical prosperity boosted wedlock rates, but only temporarily. Broader cultural trends that emphasized individual pick and gender equality contributed to a growing divorce rate. Divorce amid blacks had begun to rise earlier, and the postwar wedlock boom didn't last as long for blacks as it did for whites. By the 1960s, the proportion of blacks who ever married had started to decline. Divorce among whites began rise subsequently, but divorce rates for both whites and blacks accelerated substantially in the 1970s. Starting in 1980, as the gap between the wages of more than- and less-educated people started to widen, the educational slope in divorce began to grow as well. Today, divorce rates are substantially higher for the less-educated than for those with a college degree. About recently, it looks as if the proportion of less-educated white women who ever marry has begun to fall. Although higher-educated women delay marriage, most volition eventually get and stay married. This divide betwixt more- and less-educated white women helps us sympathize black-white differences, because it makes articulate that over time, marriage has become increasingly linked to employment and earnings, specially for women. Even though blacks' economic opportunities take improved in some respects, they still aren't most equivalent to those of whites.69 Thus black-white differences in spousal relationship have grown and so much since 1960 because economic factors have go increasingly important for wedlock formation and stability, and blacks continue to face economic disadvantage.
Inequality and the Continuing Significance of Race
A number of points emerge from our discussion. First, racial differences in U.S. spousal relationship patterns remain large. On average, black women are less likely to marry and to remain married than are white women. Second, although racial gaps in marriage persist across the educational distribution, they tend to be largest among people with the to the lowest degree education. Moreover, for both black and white women, wedlock appears to accept begun to autumn outset among those with no more a high school degree. Third, for both black and white women, marital instability rose before marriage germination fell. Finally, for both groups, educational gradients in marital instability emerged before educational gradients in marriage germination. These patterns have implications for change and variability in families that transcend racial differences in marriage.
No existing explanation alone can fully account for racial gaps in union patterns. Merely we are probable setting the bar too high if we expect any single theory to account for change and variability in processes every bit complex as matrimony formation and dissolution. A broader lesson from studying racial differences in wedlock is that if we seek to explain irresolute family patterns, we need to examine social class. Although no unmarried caption tin business relationship for all the racial gaps we see in matrimony, individual theories offering useful (albeit partial) explanations for spousal relationship gaps in specific socioeconomic strata. Almost of the recent research on the racial spousal relationship gap focuses on relatively disadvantaged populations and on women. Yet we could learn much about racial variability in wedlock, and about family modify more broadly, if we looked at wedlock patterns amongst relatively well-off populations and amidst men.
There may exist meaningful linkages between broad trends in matrimony formation and marital stability and the differences we see by race. When the imperative to ally was loftier, every bit it was through the mid-20th century in the Usa, the vast majority of women married despite high levels of poverty. But as an individualistic ethos took agree, the dominant model of wedlock shifted from institutional marriage based on gendered roles and economic cooperation to relatively frail marriages based on companionship, and divorce rates began to climb.lxx Rise divorce rates, in turn, have farther increased the ideal of individual cocky-sufficiency, encouraging delays in spousal relationship and high levels of marital instability, every bit demographer Larry Bumpass argued in his 1990 Presidential Address to the Population Association of America.71 Every bit women and couples became increasingly aware of matrimony'south fragility, investments in some marital relationships may accept declined, lowering the likelihood that they would concluding. The growth in divorce may also have led some women and couples to be less willing to ally in the first place. Bumpass argued that no changes have altered family unit life more than the growth in marital instability.
Finally, people with less education appear to exist leading the trends with respect to union and marital stability, regardless of race. Over again, there may be lessons hither for thinking about family unit change more broadly. More often than not, as marital stability and, eventually, wedlock germination became more strongly linked to the transition into stable employment for both men and women, blacks' economical disadvantage became a greater impediment to marriage. The legacy of legal discrimination, also as continued racial bias in friendship networks, residential preferences, and mate preferences, all contribute to racial inequalities within education groups. However whites are not immune to structural forces. Growing inequality has contributed to high rates of divorce amidst less-educated whites for decades, and, more recently, has started to erode their marriage opportunities too.
Footnotes
Chalandra Bryant of the University of Georgia reviewed and critiqued a draft of this article. The authors besides give thanks Becky Pettit and Shannon Cavanagh for their feedback.
Contributor Data
R. Kelly Raley, Professor of sociology and faculty research acquaintance at the Population Research Center, University of Texas at Austin.
Megan Yard. Sweeney, Professor of folklore and a faculty chapter of the California Center for Population Enquiry at the Academy of California, Los Angeles.
Danielle Wondra, Ph.D. Candidate in sociology and a graduate chapter of the California Center for Population Inquiry at the University of California, Los Angeles.
ENDNOTES
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Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4850739/