Misaklo wrote:I'm very interested. I'm afraid i haven't gotten a chance to read the articles
but i will get to them ASAP.
I'm beginning to take quite a liking to you gramps
I like the way you think, a lot like myself in fact.
Thank you kindly.
I'm quoting the articles quite liberally because of their educational benefit. When I stumbled onto them they got me to thinking, you know.
Whom you marry depends on where you live, but also on how old you are and what race you are. Most people marry people of the same race, of a similar age and from the same area. 96 percent of married black women have black husbands, and over 96 percent of married white women have white husbands.
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What might cause an imbalance in some of these local marriage markets? Imbalances in cities might be caused by unskilled young men rationally deciding to give up and move to the country, or stay there in the first place. But another major reason for men being absent from local marriage markets is prison. There are two million men in US prisons and just 100,000 women; and the men in prison are spread unevenly across age, race and geography. Huge numbers of young black men are in prison, and that is bound to pose a problem for the young black women they might otherwise have married.
In New Mexico, for example, 30 percent of young black men, aged 20-35, are in prison (or, less commonly, in a secure mental institution). That is an extreme case, but there are 32 states with more than one in ten young black men in prison, and ten states where one in six young black men are behind bars. That is a serious business for young black women.
According to economists Kerwin Kofi Charles and Ming Ching Luoh, where a large number of a particular racial group is in prison, women of the same age and race in that state do not enjoy the gains from marriage, or a stable relationship, that women in a more equitable situation do.
Charles and Luoh show that young black women facing a shortage of men try to increase their attractiveness as marriage prospects. The more men are in prison, the more likely women are to get themselves a job, and the more likely they are to go to college. College-educated people are much more likely to marry other college-educated people, so an education doesn't just make you smart, it wins you a smart husband or wife.
Improving their bargaining position in the marriage market is, of course, not the only likely reason for these decisions. Since the high incarceration rates of young black men mean young black women are less likely to marry, a college degree and a job look like a rational investment for a single girl who can't rely on a partner as a source of income. What's more, the likelihood of young black women not marrying is greatly exacerbated by another trend: it appears that young black men who are not in prison typically take advantage of their strong bargaining position by not bothering to marry at all.
From the above we see:
Factors that contribute to dilemma of young black women include:
There are more African Americans in US jails and of those more males incarcerated than female. A competitive market is created.
Women then compete by increasing their attractiveness, getting jobs and enrolling in college.
This then has a negative effect when men realize they can be lazy and still get the benefits.
It’s a 1:3 ratio where one percentage point rise in the proportion of young black men in prison reduces the proportion of young black women who have ever been married by three percentage points.
In areas where there are 20% - 30% of young black men in jail the marriage statistic is dramatic.
The situation gets 'worse' though.
There are a lot of African-American single moms around, and some commentators are inclined to blame this fact on "black culture" — whatever that phrase might mean.
But "black culture" doesn't explain why the single moms are disproportionately in the states where lots of young black men are in prison.
Economics does: women's bargaining power is badly dented by the imprisonment of potential husbands.
I wish this information was available to me when I was a kid.
I'm still trying to make sense of what I continue to see as an insane world.
~Grandpa
