Many commentators focus on the large share of black children born to unmarried women: 69.4 percent in 2018. They point to the difficulties these children face. They preach the success sequence: education, employment, marriage, and then childbearing. They ignore, however, the substantial impediments black women face.
Some observers like Christina Cross suggest that black women have little reason to choose marriage since benefits from the nuclear family are much smaller for black children. Cross noted, “Although in general, youths raised in two-parent families are less likely to live in poverty, black youths raised by both biological parents are still three times more likely to live in poverty than their white peers.” What she didn’t state is that the poverty rate for black children in mother-only households is almost four times higher than those living in married-couple households: 46 versus 12 percent.
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