Title: Why Has Marriage Declined among Black Americans? | Scholars Strategy Network
Headings: Why Has Marriage Declined among Black Americans?
Why Has Marriage Declined among Black Americans?
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Dawne Mouzon

Content: In 2010, 4,347 out of every 100,000 black men were in prison, a rate that was six times higher than the imprisonment rate for white men. Even more important, the characteristics and life situations of many black men fall well short of women’s preferences. In 2010, the Pew Research Center asked respondents to rate the importance of various factors when choosing a mate, and found that black women have high aspirations. Asked how important it is that a “good husband or partner provide a good income,” two thirds of black women said it is very important, compared to 32% of white women. Roughly 55% of black women said it was very important for a husband or partner to be well-educated, compared to only 28% of white women. Half of black women said that financial stability should be an important precondition for marriage, but only a quarter of white women felt that way. Men with such ideal characteristics are especially hard to find in low-income minority communities. A highly acclaimed study by sociologists Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas found that low-income black and Latina mothers value marriage highly but see many financial barriers, because potential partners often have very low incomes and may be unemployed. Similarly, sociologists William Julius Wilson and Kathryn Neckerman found that high unemployment was associated with low rates of marriage; and another study using data from 1990 to 2009 found that a dearth of men with attractive social characteristics was, in fact, associated with high rates of families headed by women.