Educated Black women less likely to marry, study says

- Black women have made great gains in higher education and employment, yet the gains may have come at the cost of marriage and family, according to a recent study by researchers at Yale University.

Natalie Nitsche and Hannah Brueckner of Yale found that Black women born after 1950 were twice as likely as White women to not have married by age 45. They were also twice as likely to be divorced, widowed or separated.

The authors reviewed U.S. Census data dating back to the 1970s on race, gender, education, marriage and fertility. Their findings were presented at the 104th annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in San Francisco earlier this month.

“Highly educated Black women have increasingly fewer options when it comes to potential mates,” Brueckner said in a statement. “They are less likely than Black men to marry outside their race and, compared to Whites and Black men, they are less likely to marry a college-educated spouse.”

The initial findings of the study did not surprise Audrey Chapman, a radio show host who has written on the subject of Black relationships and has a show on Howard University’s WHUR station on the topic.

“I can make it quite simple, there are not as many educated Black men as Black women,” Chapman told the AFRO. “There are more Black men in jail than at a university. Statistics have shown that during the freshman year at college, there are 100 Black females compared to 88 Black males.”

“By the time the senior year comes around, there are only 49 Black males to every 100 Black females,” Chapman said. “Black women are having trouble looking for Black men of equal status in their lives.”

The study found that Black women with postgraduate educations born between 1956 and 1960, first gave birth at a median age of 34 years old. That age is about the same as White women in the same demographic, the study said.

But, according to the study, once White women reached their 30s, many more of them give birth, often more than once, while Black women did not. Statistics showed that the rate of childlessness among Black women of that age rose from 30 percent for those born between 1950 and 1955, to 45 percent for those born between 1956 and 1960.

Beyond the personal interests of individual women, the trend is significant because “in terms of American society, this is one additional obstacle” to the broadening of the Black middle class, Brueckner said.

“Fewer highly educated Black people having children means that they cannot pass on those advantages and knowledge,” she said.

While Dr. Denise Wright, a practicing D.C. psychologist, does not dispute the findings, she said that the data must be looked at in a broader context.

“The disparity between educated Black women and Black men in general is inherent in the society we live in,” said Wright. “Black men have to deal with such issues as the constant threat of incarceration, the work availability disparity between Black women and Black men and the end of the agrarian society, where the man was supposed to be the sole provider of the family and a welfare system that does not encourage family building. Those are things that have held Black men back and yet promoted Black women who want to educate themselves.”

Wright said that finding a mate is more than just “numbers and statistics.”

“The key in any relationship is personal chemistry and you have to look at the person’s heart, regardless of what status society has imposed on them,” she said.

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