Why Marriage Should Be a National Priority
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Still not talking about Black-White inequality in marriage
In 2014, when it seemed like everyone was talking about inequality, I wrote: “One thing that frustrates me in the growing conversation about economic inequality is the appearance of a perhaps-too-comfortable stance in which being explicit about economic inequality means not having to address racial inequality.”
This situation has not improved.
I didn’t get around to this in my first post about Melissa Kearney’s NY Times Op-Ed, but she mentioned education 11 times and had one passing mention of “race and ethnic groups” (unspecified) in her cataclysmic depiction of “The Explosive Rise of Single-Parent Families.” As I wrote in that old post, “If you claim to be serious about the serious issue of unmarried women having babies, you can’t politely ignore race and racism.” Race isn’t in her Op-Ed, but Kearney is very concerned about the “widening class gap in family structure,” and the “normalization of one-parent homes outside the college-educated class,” and how we must, “close class gaps and create a stronger society for us all .”
I was reminded to follow up on this because we’re reading Andrew Cherlin’s review of marriage deinstitutionalization for my family demography seminar (ungated). In the abstract, he writes:
“What has happened in recent years to the place of marriage in the broader field of intimate partnerships is consistent with the deinstitutionalization thesis, although primarily among the non-college-educated. In contrast, marriage still plays a central role in the field of intimate partnerships among the college-educated.“
The discussion of racial inequality in that piece is confined to a paragraph; education and social class throughout. My point is that this is a theoretical or political, not an empirical decision. It’s a choice to focus on education levels over Black-White inequality — but it’s not a choice he explains or justifies.
This is the thing: Even if education measured class (which Cherlin has certainly written well about), it does not explain Black-White inequality. Certainly Kearney knows this, but it’s just not what she wants to talk about. When people say, “You’re stigmatizing single mothers, which is racist!” marriage promoters act extremely offended, because they weren’t even talking about race. Which, incidentally, is literally what Charles Murray does: talks about class while waggling his eyebrows at people racialized as Black.
Here are two data arguments. First, updating that old post: The percentage of women not married among those who had a baby in the previous year, as recorded by the American Community Survey in 2021. This figure shows that, among college graduates, Black mothers are 4.4-times more likely than Whites to be not married when they have a birth. That ratio is bigger than the overall ratio of unmarried births between mothers with less than a high school degree (48%) and those with a BA or more (12%). Clearly, differences by education are large, especially the BA/no-BA gap, but Black (and American Indian) mothers have much lower marriage rates at all education levels.
Here’s another way to look at it.
This figure is the proportion of women who have ever been married by age 40-44, comparing Black and White women in 1980 and 2021, four decades apart. In 1980 there was not much gap by education, and a Black-White difference of 4 to 9 percentage points depending on education. By 2021 the education gap had grown to 11 points for White women and 24 points for Black women. But now the Black-White gap ranges from 25 points among college graduates to 38 points among women who didn’t finish high school. Again: Class cannot explain this.
Finally, since we’re talking about decompositions in my graduate seminar today, here is the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition of the Black-White gaps in the proportion never married by age 40-44 for both women and men, using only education as an explanatory variable.** It shows the rising Black-White difference in never-married rates between 1980 and 2021, from 7 to 32 points for women, and from 6 to 24 points for men. And it shows that differences in education levels account for relatively little of this gap, just 3 points and 5 points for women and men respectively in 2021. It is the coefficients — that is, in this simple case, the ever-married rate differences across education levels, that explain the Black-White gap: 31 points for women and 22 points for men. The Black-White difference in marriage rates is not accounted for by differences in education levels, but by different marriage rates within education levels. Class (education) cannot explain this.
So don’t let the marriage promoters not talk about racial inequality. It’s all over the social and economic reality of their subject matter, and all over the policy implications of their work. It may seem racist to talk about race when you’re talking about family choices — even if you whisper — but just pretending you’re not talking about race when you actually are is no better.
familyinequality.wordpress.com
In 2014, when it seemed like everyone was talking about inequality, I wrote: “One thing that frustrates me in the growing conversation about economic inequality is the appearance of a perhaps-too-comfortable stance in which being explicit about economic inequality means not having to address racial inequality.”
This situation has not improved.
I didn’t get around to this in my first post about Melissa Kearney’s NY Times Op-Ed, but she mentioned education 11 times and had one passing mention of “race and ethnic groups” (unspecified) in her cataclysmic depiction of “The Explosive Rise of Single-Parent Families.” As I wrote in that old post, “If you claim to be serious about the serious issue of unmarried women having babies, you can’t politely ignore race and racism.” Race isn’t in her Op-Ed, but Kearney is very concerned about the “widening class gap in family structure,” and the “normalization of one-parent homes outside the college-educated class,” and how we must, “close class gaps and create a stronger society for us all .”
I was reminded to follow up on this because we’re reading Andrew Cherlin’s review of marriage deinstitutionalization for my family demography seminar (ungated). In the abstract, he writes:
“What has happened in recent years to the place of marriage in the broader field of intimate partnerships is consistent with the deinstitutionalization thesis, although primarily among the non-college-educated. In contrast, marriage still plays a central role in the field of intimate partnerships among the college-educated.“
The discussion of racial inequality in that piece is confined to a paragraph; education and social class throughout. My point is that this is a theoretical or political, not an empirical decision. It’s a choice to focus on education levels over Black-White inequality — but it’s not a choice he explains or justifies.
This is the thing: Even if education measured class (which Cherlin has certainly written well about), it does not explain Black-White inequality. Certainly Kearney knows this, but it’s just not what she wants to talk about. When people say, “You’re stigmatizing single mothers, which is racist!” marriage promoters act extremely offended, because they weren’t even talking about race. Which, incidentally, is literally what Charles Murray does: talks about class while waggling his eyebrows at people racialized as Black.
Here are two data arguments. First, updating that old post: The percentage of women not married among those who had a baby in the previous year, as recorded by the American Community Survey in 2021. This figure shows that, among college graduates, Black mothers are 4.4-times more likely than Whites to be not married when they have a birth. That ratio is bigger than the overall ratio of unmarried births between mothers with less than a high school degree (48%) and those with a BA or more (12%). Clearly, differences by education are large, especially the BA/no-BA gap, but Black (and American Indian) mothers have much lower marriage rates at all education levels.
Here’s another way to look at it.
This figure is the proportion of women who have ever been married by age 40-44, comparing Black and White women in 1980 and 2021, four decades apart. In 1980 there was not much gap by education, and a Black-White difference of 4 to 9 percentage points depending on education. By 2021 the education gap had grown to 11 points for White women and 24 points for Black women. But now the Black-White gap ranges from 25 points among college graduates to 38 points among women who didn’t finish high school. Again: Class cannot explain this.
Finally, since we’re talking about decompositions in my graduate seminar today, here is the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition of the Black-White gaps in the proportion never married by age 40-44 for both women and men, using only education as an explanatory variable.** It shows the rising Black-White difference in never-married rates between 1980 and 2021, from 7 to 32 points for women, and from 6 to 24 points for men. And it shows that differences in education levels account for relatively little of this gap, just 3 points and 5 points for women and men respectively in 2021. It is the coefficients — that is, in this simple case, the ever-married rate differences across education levels, that explain the Black-White gap: 31 points for women and 22 points for men. The Black-White difference in marriage rates is not accounted for by differences in education levels, but by different marriage rates within education levels. Class (education) cannot explain this.
So don’t let the marriage promoters not talk about racial inequality. It’s all over the social and economic reality of their subject matter, and all over the policy implications of their work. It may seem racist to talk about race when you’re talking about family choices — even if you whisper — but just pretending you’re not talking about race when you actually are is no better.
Still not talking about Black-White inequality in marriage
Don’t let the marriage promoters not talk about racial inequality.
familyinequality.wordpress.com