Ladies, can we please talk? This is getting to be a bit much. This was on Oprah last season and I was reading an article that discussed the issue yesterday. What am I talking about? Glad you asked. This “grave” statistic that says 42.4% of black women have never been married.
Why would I have an issue with this statistic? Because the way the statistic is presented doesn’t in itself tell any meaningful story, yet when I have seen the percentage mentioned, it makes it seem like a black woman doesn’t have a snow ball chance in hell to get married to a black man. Does this mean that 42.4% of black women will never get married? No it does not. In fact the US Census says that by the time a black woman reaches the age of 50 that number drops to 14.6%. Which means the vast majority of black women will eventually be married. When you leave the first statistic out there to stand on it’s on, it gives a false impression that all black men are in prison, there are no good black men left to marry and one of the most tired statistics that black women consistently put out there: the 1 black man to 8 black women ratio.
Am I saying there are no issues in the black community regarding dating and marriage? Of course not, but at the same time there are statistics that are being presented that do not tell the whole story or give a clear picture of what the case really is.
Let’s truly look at some of the US Census numbers and put some things into perspective. When I first heard the 42.4% number of black women that have never been married, one of the first things that came to my mind was how many black men have never been married? The way the numbers are presented its like there is this huge number of black women out there single and black men are either off marrying white women or in jail. It would seem that 42.4% of black women are just shit out of luck when it comes to their chances of being married.
To answer the first question that came to my mind. There are 44.9% of black men out there that have never been married. When doing surveys there is always a margin of error, so I will say that anything below a 5% difference when we are talking about millions of people is a statistically even number. Percentage wise there are about the same number of black men that have never been married as there are black women.
Now you are going to say, well FGM what about the actual number of black men out there that are actually in the dating population. For dating and wedding purposes I did a couple of things, so let me explain before I continue.
The 42.4% number was from the 2000 census information released. The most recent information out there is for 2004 and I will be using those numbers. For 2004 the number of black women never married increased slightly to 43.5% and the number of black men never married reduced slightly to 44.5%. Now we need to get a good understanding of these numbers. Those numbers are based on people 15 years of age to 70 + years of age. To get a clearer understanding of these numbers I would like to use a better age range to discuss dating and marriage. For this discussion forward (unless otherwise noted) we will use the 2004 US Census numbers, but we will use the age range of 20 to 49 years of age.
From a raw number stand point people in this age range, there are 8,641,000 black women and 7,124,000 black men. Now in most societies the birth rate of men to women is actually pretty even and as people age men have shorter life spans. This is true in the black community as I saw no other statistics that would point other wise.
With these numbers let’s look at a few other factors that directly affect the picture. We know that the American judicial / prison system is inappropriately slanted against black men. That is a topic that can be discussed in another blog entry. The latest data I read showed 832,000 black men in prison. Now that is a huge number, no question about it and we will factor this number into the discussion. What I would like to do since we are using the 20 to 49 age range is to knock off 200,000 people that I think would fall on either side of the age range. This could be a little high or a little low, but I think it is a fair number. That leaves us with 632,000 estimated men in prison between the ages of 20 to 49. Now at the same time, there are 66,000 black women in prison. I will reduce this number by the same percentage as I did with the men. This leaves us with an estimated 50,100 black women in prison.
Adjusting the numbers accordingly, this leaves us with 8,591,000 black women in our dating / marriage range. We then have 6,492,000 black men in the dating / marriage range. That gives us with a ratio of 1 black man to every 1.3 black women or obviously a 2,000,000 black man shortage. As I stated earlier, statistics can be looked at from different angles to prove a point. I would like to dismiss the complete lie that women have perpetuated for years and that there is not a 1 to 8 ration of men to women. I think if most women had a choice and said if it was a 1 to 2 ratio they would like their chances; well ladies it’s even lower than that. Now the diehards that truly want to look at the doom and gloom of the ratio in men will say, but there is a 2,000,000 difference. Not so fast. When you take the percentages of those who have never been married, the numbers get closer. The number of black women between the ages of 20 to 49 that have never been married is 3,737,000 and for black men that have never been married is 2,888,000. That leaves us with a shortage of 849,000 men in the dating / marriage pool and a ratio just below 1 black man to 1.3 black women.
What do these numbers say? In my humble opinion it is not the doom and gloom that has been presented by Oprah or others out there. There are still a viable number of black men that are available in the dating / marriage pool.
I want to put out some other numbers for you to digest that I think will also shed some interesting light on what is going on with marriages in the black community.
We have all heard that black men are going off and marrying white women on a grand scale. Here are the numbers straight from the census. There are 240,000 black men married to white women. On the flip side there are 124,000 black women married to white men. I have to be honest; I had bought into this one as well. I would have assumed this number was a lot higher (black men married to white women) based on the information that is feed to us.
Here are a few other interesting facts. Black women’s first marriage last an avg. of 8.3 years. Black men’s first marriage last an avg. of 9 years. This is longer than white or Hispanic men and women. The percentage of black women that have married once and are still in their first marriage is 24.3%. The same statistic for black men is 30.1%.
Why are those numbers important? Because when It is put out there that 42.4% of black women have never been married, it gives the impression that black men don’t want to be married and are not capable of staying in a marriage. These numbers point to a different picture of what is going on.
One other statistic I would like to add is this notion that there are not enough college educated black men to go around for all of the college educated black women. People, there are only 17.2% of all black people that have college degrees. Can we get real with this please? This means that at minimum 80% of all black women don’t have a college education, so the shortage of black men without a college education can not be that great. Think about it.
I feel that in the black community we do not put as much of an emphasis on getting married young as our white counterparts. Our white counter parts tend to get married soon after their educational pursuits whether that is high school or college. In their lives, it is part of that next step in life that they are “suppose” to have. I believe there is a huge difference in the mentality of the black community when it comes to marriage verses what our white counterparts are being taught. In the black community we struggle with traditional roles that men and women should adopt in relationships. This is lends itself to people getting married later in life in the black community.
One of the variables that I think skews the marriage numbers between blacks and whites are that most black folk live in metropolitan areas. There are a large percentage of white people that live in non metropolitan areas. I think if we were to compare metropolitan marriage statistics of blacks and whites I believe the numbers would look a lot more alike. I think that most people regardless of race, that live in metropolitan areas are getting married much later than what historically has been the case.
I ask that you take with you that things are not as dire as they have been presented for black women when it comes to marriage. I also ask that when someone gives you a percentage, ask yourself how can I look at this differently. Black women, I say to you that we (black men) still love you and embrace you as our queens, but we are all in this together. Feeding into some of these negative views of black men only drives a further wedge in the black community. Are there issues that need to be addressed? No question about it. We have to deal with these issues in a responsible way that requires both black men and black women to look into the mirror and do some self analysis.
- Post Blog Note
I decided to add a post note to the blog. I thought of including this into the blog originally and did not. My first comment ended up mentioning it so, I will discuss it briefly. My first commenter asked, what about the gay men. My response to that is simply, what about the gay women. There are as many if not more lesbian black women as there are gay black men. I did do a search and never saw any credible numbers for either group. So unfortunately I can not give any hard numbers. To me the number of gay black men is another one of those urban legends that gets blown out of proportion. Why is that? It’s simple, from a sexual standpoint society accepts women being together substantially easier than they do men. Now when it comes to marriage there is equal disdain, but strictly from a sexual standpoint gay men are outkast more and it is discussed more in a negative light.
Then of course we have the bi / DL men. The reality with this is unfortunate, but from a numbers standpoint there are a lot of bi women out there, again no credible numbers for either category, but the sad truth is that bi / DL men are still dating and marrying women. Just as bi women are dating and marrying men. Now approving of it is another story and another topic. But, as it deals with this topic specifically, the number of men that fit into this category is offset by the number of women in the category. In fact I think there are far more bi women than there are bi men. Why? A woman being bi is almost encouraged in this society and because of that more women will experiment with a woman. While on the other hand, being bi as a man is shunned upon which unfortunately leads to the whole DL situation as well as fewer men willing to risk being labeled by experimenting that way.
Ok FGM I didn’t see gay factored in your percentages? I have been married and married very young and my marriage lasted about 10 years so it is right on from the numbers you put up. I am single and dating now and will probably get married again…maybe. But a lot of my female friends in their mid to late 30’s aren’t and have never been married. Interesting blog good to see you back at it.
Comment by pinkkittycat — February 20, 2009 @ 10:51 am
As a single, never married 42 year old I can say that my reason for not getting married had nothing to do with the lack of men whether black, white or other. It was about my career and where I was in it. I have been engaged a few times but I was too young to get married and had not really experienced life the way I wanted or needed to. Marrying right out of high school is naive to me. My first engagement was right out of high school. I knew better and chose to end the engagement.
I can speak from my experiences with men and those my friends have told me about. Most of my friends are still married after many wonderful years, some are now divorced and there are a few of us who just decided that it is not the time to go down that road.
I wanted to be able to bring something to the table when I got married. I wanted my marriage to be about 50/50. I did not want my husband to ever think that he had to do it alone. I would let him handle our household business but he needed to know that I was there to pull him up if he ever fell. Then as the years went alone I decided that I liked my current lifestyle of being able to come and go when I wanted to. Being able to buy what I wanted without having to run things by someone else. Major purchases could be done within days instead of weeks of negotiation. For me, it was the selfishness of ME, MYSELF, and I. I became self sufficient making quite a bit more than most men. Being able to purchase a house on my own, and the vehicles or my choice. I realized that what most hoped for in their marriages I had already achieved. I became an independent woman. So independent that I lost my sight of what was important to me as a woman - a strong, loving man. It is not until you turn 40 that you start to look at your life in a different light. I proved that I could do it alone and I guess the reason why the statistics show a lower number of unwed women is that somewhere between 40 - 49 a light comes on and we are able to see. See I have found that too many of us see independence as having to do it all alone. I was never a fool. I know men have a purpose in our lives and it is as husbands and not merely sex partners.
You mentioned that you wondered if the numbers were indicative of their not being enough black men and I would have to ask you why you feel the numbers are reflective of black couples? Black men are not the only ones available to us and many times NOT the ones chasing us. But they are the ones we seek. I believe that there are good men and good women out there but how far are you willing to go to find them. Do I think I would ever marry? Lets put it this way, if I continue to meet the type of guys who are pretending to be the type of man I am looking for, I may just have to throw my hands up. Now I am curious as to how many of those people they talk to have had horrible experiences with men and felt marriage was not worth it?
Comment by AtlantaSensualOne — February 20, 2009 @ 7:20 pm
@Atlanta Sensual One
Thanks for the solid comment. I think that you represent part of what I mentioned in the blog. The part of society that is waiting before getting married in order to go after their own goals. I am similar in that pursuit and while I think marriage is a great thing, it’s not a do now type of situation for me.
I am not the one saying that the numbers presented are negative. It has been put out there by Oprah and others that the numbers are dire. It is my argument that you can not look at one number and just automatically proclaim that black women are never going to marry. To me it is a knee jerk reaction to a statistic and gloom and doom is pronounced. It is also very typical to negatively look at the black family unit and accept whatever someone tells us.
Just for clarity the numbers reflect black couples because they were specifically broken down by race in the US census.
Comment by freakygoodman — February 21, 2009 @ 10:39 pm
I can only speak from my own experience I don’t proclaim to speak for the entire race of black women…so in my experience I do feel there are a shortage of available good black men(for me). I don’t know anything about other races because I don’t want anything but a black man and I know u, FGM will probably say that its the same for black men trying to find a good black women. But again I am not looking for a woman so I don’t have any experiences with that. All I know is no matter where I go club, bar, grocery store, carnival, concert, PTA meeting, mall or anywhere the number of black men to black women is significantly lower? Now does this mean that black women will never get married I don’t know but I do know u can’t marry what’s not there or available. Also I live in Cali where many black men date outside their race and also has a large population of openly gay black men. And yes there are gay women but again I am not gay so I am not paying much attention to gay women. Again, I have been married so I guess I don’t fall into the Oprah statistics but now as a single black women( for 6 years) looking for a single black man I do struggle for whatever reason but I didn’t need a statistic to tell me because I live it everyday.
Comment by pinkkittycat — February 23, 2009 @ 3:45 pm