Thursday, March 4, 2021

Race, Marriage and Family Structure

Interracial Marriage 

Really interesting Interracial marriage patterns from the PEW:

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/05/18/1-trends-and-patterns-in-intermarriage/



Understanding the disparity in divorce rate among Americans of different races

Here is research
 from sociologist Jennifer Lundquist (2006) showing that Americans who are black but in the military have lower rates of divorce than white counterparts.

Public Policy scholar Dawne Mouzon explains on the Scholars Strategy Network that Americans who identify as black actually value marriage more than whites but 
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. Finally, a truly innovative study by Kristen Harknett and Sara McLanahan simultaneously tested cultural and socioeconomic explanations. Even though black women in this study had the strongest pro-marriage attitudes, the high ratio of black women to men and an undersupply of employed black men fully explained the lower likelihood of marriage for black women.
Structural factors—for example, declining employment prospects and rising incarceration rates for unskilled black men—clearly play a role, the authors write, but...the racial gap in marriage...is due partly to broad changes in ideas about family arrangements that have made marriage optional. As the imperative to marry has fallen, alongside other changes in the economy that have increased women’s economic contributions to the household, socioeconomic standing has become increasingly important for marriage. Race continues to be associated with economic disadvantage, and thus as economic factors have become more relevant to marriage and marital stability, the racial gap in marriage has grown.