Friday Reading: Black Women See Fewer Black Men at the Altar
June 4, 2010 by blackgirlgrown
Filed under black women, race, relationships
The New York Times writes on new research indicating that black men are increasingly marrying women of other races. Based on research from Pew Research Center, 1 out of every 5 black men married outside their race in 2008:
It is a familiar lament of single African-American women: where are the “good” black men to marry?
A new study shows that more and more black men are marrying women of other races. In fact, more than 1 in 5 black men who wed (22 percent) married a nonblack woman in 2008. This compares with about 9 percent of black women, and represents a significant increase for black men — from 15.7 percent in 2000 and 7.9 percent in 1980.
Sociologists said the rate of black men marrying women of other races further reduces the already-shrunken pool of potential partners for black women seeking a black husband.
“When you add in the prison population,” said Prof. Steven Ruggles, director of the Minnesota Population Center, “it pretty well explains the extraordinarily low marriage rates of black women.”
Among all married African-Americans in 2008, 13 percent of men and 6 percent of women had a nonblack spouse. This compares with nearly half of American-born Asians choosing non-Asian spouses.
“The continuing imbalance in the rates for black men and black women could be making it even harder for black women to find a husband,” said Prof. Andrew J. Cherlin, director of the population center at Johns Hopkins University.
The study, to be released Friday by the Pew Research Center, found that intermarriage among Asian, black, Hispanic and white people now accounts for a record 1 in 6 new marriages in the United States. Tellingly, blacks and whites remain the least-common variety of interracial pairing. Still, black-white unions make up 1 in 60 new marriages today, compared with fewer than 1 in 1,000 back when Barack Obama’s parents wed a half-century ago.
blackgirlgrown
