The black marriage rate has declined precipitously in the past half century. A gap has opened between black and white marriage rates which was not true two generations ago. Similarly, a gap has opened between the out-marriage rate (that is, marrying outside their race) of black women and black men, which was not true two generations ago.
Banks' main conclusion is that the imbalance in the relationship market is the main culprit. There are many more black women ready for marriage than there are black men. This lets black men, as a group, get the benefits of marriage, including children, without the obligations.
Banks concludes that if black women were more willing to marry out, the power balance would become more even. In the end, more black men and women would marry each other.
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3 comments:
Funny how the obligation to change always seems to fall on the lowest-status minority. Given some empirical data about how much difficulty black women face in dating, I'm not sure the gap has to do with how "willing" they are to marry out.
I do know the OK Cupid data (and thank them very much for collecting and posting it).
I think there could be a serious market and movement in African American women marrying foreign men, who would like to immigrate to the United States. This could have benefits all around.
That is an interesting tack, but I'm not sure how one would go about marketing it.
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