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A Common Destiny: Blacks and American Society (1989)

Chapter: Children and Families

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Suggested Citation:"Children and Families." National Research Council. 1989. A Common Destiny: Blacks and American Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1210.
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Suggested Citation:"Children and Families." National Research Council. 1989. A Common Destiny: Blacks and American Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1210.
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lo CHILDREN AND FAMILIES 509

/ William H. Johnson P~.~round Scene (ca. 1939-1942) Pen and ink with pencil on paper National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Gift of the Harmon Foundation

The major changes in American society during the past five decades have been accompanied by significant alterations in the family lives of men, women, and, most importantly, children. Trends in fertility, marital status, and in patterns of child rearing have had important effects on both social and economic life. In this chapter, our primary objec- tives are to describe those trends, discuss various explanations for them, and to consider the implications of them for the current well-being of children and the status of future generations of adults. CHANGING FAMILY PATTERNS OVE RVI EW Since 1960 the trends in marital status, fertility, marital stability, and child rearing for both blacks and whites have been similar. Those trends include: lower marriage rates and a delayed age at first marriage; higher divorce rates; lower birth rates; earlier and increased sexual activity among adolescents; a higher proportion of births to unmarried mothers; higher percentages of children living in female-headed families; · a higher proportion of women working outside the home; and · a higher percentage of children living in poverty. The changes, however, have been much more pronounced for blacks than 511

A COMMON DESTINY: BLACKS AND AMERICAN SOCIETY for whites. The result is increasingly different marital and family experiences for the two groups. Indeed, in terms of major statistical indicators of marital status, there were far larger differences in the profiles of black and white Americans in 1980 than there were in 1890 (Walker, 1986:25~. While we examine these diverging trends and their possible causes, we stress that both populations have experienced similar changes. A summary of a few important trends in marriage and family patterns for black and white families highlights changes in black-white differences over the past 40 years (see Glick, 1981~. · While blacks have traditionally married at younger ages than whites, whites now marry at much younger ages than blacks. In 1986, 39 percent of white women aged 20-24 were married, compared with 17 percent of black women. · On average, black women spend 16 of their expected 73 years of life with a husband; white women spend 34 of an expected 77 years of life married. · It is estimated that 86 percent of black children and 42 percent of white children will spend some time in a mother-only or other single-parent house- hold (Bumpass, 1984:Table 2~. · The rate at which unmarried black women bear children has declined in recent years; this rate has continued to increase among white women. These divergencies, in the context of similar overall trends, suggest possible differences in causal circumstances. And such differences exist. For example, the growth in the number of white and black poor families headed by women results from different behaviors: among whites, disrupted marriages; among blacks a decrease in marriage rates. Other evidence is consistent with _ c~ ~ _ _ ~ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . the hypothesis that white temale-headed households are likely to become poor as a consequence of marital breakup, while black female-headed house- holds are likely to be formed by women who were poor to begin with (Gaffinkel and McLanahan, 1986~. Historical and comparative studies suggest that nuclear families are most stable when marriage partners have common and overlapping group nffilia- tions and when the family unit is supported by social circles of other families committed to norms and values of solidarity and permanence. For many people, particularly the minority urban poor, these conditions have become less common during the past few decades. For some groups, extended kin- ship ties have weakened, and a husband-wife family often is not strongly supported and constrained by the surrounding social structure. External stresses, such as unemployment, may now have greater effects then formerly on family formation and stability because marriage and family stability are only weakly supported by political and social institutions. The deleterious effects on black families are most apparent in the high percentages of black children being raised under conditions of poverty and environmental depri- vation. 512

CH I LDREN AN D FAMI Ll ES FERTI LITY TREN DS During the decades after 1939, several changes encouraged lower rates of childbearing among Americans. First, there was the urbanization of the population and a very sharp rise in levels of educational attainment, both of which are associated with family size. Second, there has been an increase in the acceptability and use of contraception, in part because of major devel- opments in technology such as oral contraceptives and more effective intra- uterine devices. Third, there has been an increase in the rate of abortions. Although it is difficult to measure trends over time, abortion is now fre- quently used to terminate pregnancies. In the mid-1980s, there were about 64 abortions per 100 live black births and 30 abortions per 100 white births in a 13-state reporting area (Powell-Griper, 1986:Table A). Fourth, the federal government-as a component of the 1960s War on Poverty-assumed responsibility for providing family planning services to many low-income couples, which was a major change from earlier federal policies. By the mid- 1980s, state and federal governments were spending $340 million annually to provide family planning services, an average of about $8 per year for every woman aged 15-39 (Gold and Nestor, 1985:25-30~. Finally, there have been changes in the social roles of women, most of them probably leading to lower birthrates. These changes include a rise in the age at first marriage as educational attainment has risen; a growing proportion of both black and white women in the labor force; and an increasing proportion of divorce among married women. Fertility rates have not declined monotonically throughout the years since 1939, however. At the end of the Great Depression, birthrates were low and the population grew slowly during the war and immediate postwar years. Birthrates then rose, reaching a high level in the late 1950s, and have fallen sharply since then. These patterns can be illustrated by examining changes in the total fertility rate-an estimate of the number of children a woman will bear in her lifetime if she experiences the birthrates of a given calendar year and survives to age 45. Total fertility rates for blacks and whites are shown in Figure 10-1. In 1939, white women averaged just over 2 births in their lifetimes and black women just under 3. At the peak of the baby boom, white women were bearing about 3.5 children in their lifetimes and black women, 4.5. By 1984, the fertility rate for white women was about 1.7 children; for black women, 2.1. In the decades following 1960, both the black and white populations shifted from high fertility and rapid population growth to low fertility and near zero or negative population growth. The childbearing rates of black women remain above those of whites, although there is evidence of convergence. In 1960, black women averaged about one more child in their lifetime than white women; in 1984, the difference was less than one-half a child. According to the fertility and mortality rates of the early 1980s, the black population-in the absence of international migration-will grow by 513

4 a: 3 _ LL . - o A COMMON DESTI NY: BLACKS AN D AMERICAN SOCI ETY FIGURE 10-1 Total fertility rates of black and white women, 1940-1984. Black OWhite _ 1940 1 950 1960 1970 1980 1984 YEAR about 3 percent from one generation to the next, while the white population will decline by about 17 percent. Despite numerous studies, it is still not fully understood why fertility rates rose to post-Civil War peaks in the late 1950s and then fell to extremely low levels (Easterlin, 1962, 1980; Westoff, 1978~. Among whites, the change to much earlier marriage during and after World War II and economic prosper- ity helped to account for the shift from the 2-child family of the Depression era to the 3.5-child family of the Eisenhower period. Among blacks, there is agreement that the spread of diseases played a significant role in reducing fertility throughout the period from the 1870s to the 1930s (McFalls and Harvey, 1984; Wright and Pirie, 1984). The impoverished conditions of blacks and their limited access to health care meant that fertility problems were common. Approximately 30 percent of the married black women who reached menopause in the 1940s had borne no children, a rate that cannot entirely be explained by voluntary childlessness (Farley, 1987~. Increases in 514

CHILDREN AND FAMILIES living standards, the drug treatment of tuberculosis, and the government's fight against venereal disease during World War II minimized fertility prob- lems for blacks, leading to increases in fertility and dramatic declines in childlessness. After the 1950s, married American couples increasingly used contracep- tion, and presumably abortion, to prevent unwanted births. In this era, planned births became the norm among married couples of both races. The development of better birth control techniques, federal and state support for family planning clinics, and the Supreme Court's Roe decision (1973) legal- izing abortion help to explain the declines in fertility. Additional information about these fertility trends is presented in Figure 10-2, which shows birthrates at different ages for 1939, 1959, and 1984. The dramatic rise in fertility at all ages, except the oldest, is clearly seen when the 1939 and 1959 curves are compared. This period was followed by a "birth dearth" so pronounced that the 1984 birthrates for both races and for most ages were at or near their all-time lows. Childbearing by married women represents the clearest case of the disap- pearance of black-white fertility differences. Figure 10-3 shows marital fertil- ity, which is how many children a woman would bear if she married at age 20, remained married through age 45, and had children at the rates observed in the years between 1950 and 1985. At the end of the baby boom in 1960, a black woman would have borne 1.5 more children than a white woman- 5.6 births for a black woman compared with 4.1 for a white woman. By 1980, this racial difference had virtually disappeared. Among married women-indeed, among all women aged 25 and over-there was no longer a black-white difference in fertility rates. Childbearing among younger and unmarried women gives a different pic- ture. The fertility rates of black teenagers have declined sharply in recent years, but they remain more than double the rates of white teenagers. In 1960 there were 156 births per 1,000 black women aged 15-19; in 1985 there were 97, a decline of 59 births per 1,000 women. Among whites, the comparable change was from 70 births per 1,000 teenage women in 1957 to 43 in 1985 (National Center for Health Statistics, 1987:Table 4; Public Health Service, 1980:Table 1, cited in Farley, 1987~. In the mid-1980s, black women by the age of 20 had borne an average of 510 children per 1,000 black women; white women had borne an average of 216 children. In northern European countries, these rates are below 100 children per 1,000 20-year-old women (Hayes, 1987; Westoff et al., 1983~. It is generally accepted that the differences in teenage fertility between the United States and European countries is due to the wide availability of sex education and access to health and contraceptive services in Europe (Hayes, 1987~. One other major aspect of black-white differences in family formation has become much more pronounced since the end of the baby boom: the marital status of women who give birth (see Figure 10~. Between 1939 and 1959, about 18 percent of black infants and 2 percent of white infants 515

A COMMON DESTINY: BLACKS AND AMERICAN SOCIETY FIGURE 10-2 Age-specific birthrates for (a) white and (b) black women, 1939, 1959, and 1984. 300 z 250 111 ~ 200 to to to 150 at I 1 00 m 50 300 z 250 o ~ 200 to to to - - 150 T I_ 100 - ~n 50 o 516 10 15 20 25 30 AGE 1: (a) White Women l / /' I \ \ 1 959 ',1984 `~ \ ~\'N ~1 ._ _ 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 AGE (b) Black Women /\ ~ \ / ,' - / .' N~ 1939 I '' ~ ~ _ jK /// /// ~ 1 1 1 1 \ 1 959 \ I, /1 984 ~1 1 1-~ 1 35 40 45 50

CHILDREN AND FAMILIES FIGURE 10-3 Marital fertility for black and white women, 1960-1985. 6 _ 4 cr o m > rL 3 at 111 C) I O 2 o _, _ Black O White 1~. - _ ,.,, :: :.: :.~::~:::s _ 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 YEAR Note: Marital fertility is the: estimated number of children ever born to women who marry at age 20, remain married to age 45, and briar children according to the marital fertility rates of 1960 to 1985. Sources: Data from decennial censuses and Current Population Surveys. 517

A COMMON DESTINY: BLACKS AND AMERICAN SOCIETY FIGURE 104 Births to unmarried women, by race, 1940-1981. 60 I 48 m ct 36 o 111 ~ 24 of lid 1 2 Black or Nonwhite ~ 1940 1945 1950 1955 1960 YEAR Note: Data for years prior to 1969 refer to whites and nonwhites. Sources: National Center for Health Statistics (1978, 1983). White . ____ __ ,'_ __- _ ~ 1965 1970 1975 1980 were born to unmarried women. These percentages subsequently changed rapidly; by the mid-1980s, 6 black births in 10 and 1 white birth in 8 were to unmarried women. This change in the marital status of mothers is not due to increases in the rate at which unmarried women bear children. Rather, it is the result of two fundamental demographic changes. First, the age of women at marriage has risen. As a consequence, women are exposed to the possibility of nonmarital pregnancy for a much longer time and to marital childbearing for a shorter time. In the 1960 census, 64 percent of the black women aged 20-24 had married; in the 1986 population survey, 25 percent of the same age group reported they had married. Among white women, the corresponding change was from 72 percent married in 1960 to 45 percent in 1986 (Farley, 1987~. Second, there has been a much greater decline in the fertility rates of married women than in those of unmarried women, a change that produces an increase in the percentage of total births to unmarried women. In sum, the rapidly rising proportion of babies-both black and white-born to un- married women has resulted from a major shift in the marital status of mothers, not from a higher birthrate among unmarried women. 518

CHILDREN AND FAMILIES MARITAL STATUS AND LIVING ARRANGEMENTS OF CHILDREN According to the Census Bureau's definitions (in use since 1947), a family consists of two or more people who live in the same household and are related by blood, marriage, or adoption. Families are categorized into three types: those that include a married couple are termed husband-wife families; female-headed families typically include a mother and her children but might also consist of sisters or other relatives who live together; male-headed fami- lies are headed by a man who lives with one or more relatives but not with his wife. At all dates, the distribution of kinds of white families differed substantially from that of blacks. While similar trends are evident for both whites and blacks, the timing and magnitude of change differ. In 1940, husband-wife families made up about 76 percent of all black families and 85 percent of all white families. From 1940 to the late 1950s, the proportion of black families headed by a woman remained roughly constant at 19 percent; by 1960 that proportion had risen only slightly to 22 percent. But during the next 25 years the percentage of black families headed by women doubled, to 44 percent. In 1940, the proportion of white families headed by women was 10 percent; by the mid-1980s, it had increased on,ly slightly, to 13 percent. Two demographic components help to account for the shifting distribu- tion of families by type. First, a decreasing proportion of adults live with a spouse, so a smaller fraction of adults, especially black adults, can be heads or coheads of husband-wife families. Second, the rate at which women head their own families has increased. Since 1960, the proportion of adult women who head their own families rose for both whites and blacks, but the increase was much greater for black women. Among separated and divorced women in 1984, two-thirds of blacks were household heads, compared with one- half of whites. In the past, if a woman experienced divorce, became a widow, or had a child prior to marriage, she was likely to move into the household of relatives. Since 1960, it has become common for such women to head their own families (Ross and Sawhill, 1975~. The proportion of separated or divorced black women who headed families increased from 40 to 66 percent between 1960 and 1984. Similar trends are found among white women: in 1960 35 percent of separated or divorced white women headed families; by 1984 this proportion had increased to 49 percent-higher than the 40 per- cent recorded for black women in 1960. Never-married white women rarely head families; only 5 percent did so in 1984. This was true also of black never-married women in 1960, when 6 percent did so; but by 1984, almost 25 percent of such black women headed families. These changes can be seen in Figure 10-5a and b. This figure is based on the rates of marriage, divorce, remarriage, and death observed in 5-year intervals between 1940 and 1980. It shows the percentage of the total life span that would be spent in each of five different marital statuses by the average woman if the rates of that period continued indefinitely. For com- parative data for men, see Figure 10-5c and d. Of course, not every person 519

A COMMON DESTINY: BLACKS AND AMERICAN SOCIETY FIGURE 10-5 Percentage of life span spent in five marital statuses for (a) black and (b) white women and (c) black and (d) white men, 1940-1980. (a) Black Women 1940-1945 1945-1950 1950-1955 a: 1955-1960 1960-1965 1965-1970 1970-1975 1975-1980 1940-1945 1945-1950 1950-1955 1955-1960 1960-1965 1965-1970 1970-1975 1975-1980 [1 Single First marriage 0 10 20 30 40 (b) White Women 50 60 70 80 90 100 PERCENT 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 PERCENT Separation or divorced Remarriages 70 80 90 100 ~ Widowed Note: Percentages calculated on the basis of rates observed for each 5-year period. Source: Espenshade (1985:Tables 2 and 3). Reprinted with permission. goes through the five marital statuses since some people never marry or, if married, never divorce or separate. The shift toward much earlier marriage among blacks and whites can be seen in the decline, between 1940 and 1960, in the percentage of time that 520

CHILDREN AND FAMlilES FIGURE 10-5 (Continued) (c) Black Men 1940-1945 1945-1950 1950-1955 6 1955-1960 1960-1965 1965-1970 1970-1975 1975-1980 1940-1945 1945-1950 1950-1955 cat 1955-1960 1960-1965 1965-1970 1970-1975 1975-1980 C| Single First marriage 1 1 1 1 1 1 it- 1 1 1 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 PERCENT (d) White Men 1 1 11 1 ~ 1 1 ' 1 1 1 1 0 10 2030 40 50 60 70 80 90 PERCENT Separation or divorced Eg Remarriages ~ Widowed women spent before their first marriage, that is, as single women. Since 1960, there has been a shift toward later marriage, a reduction in the years women typically spend with their first husbands, and a corresponding lengthening of the interval of separation and divorce between the first and 521

A COMMON DESTINY: BLACKS AND AMERICAN SOCIETY TIBIAE ~Q-1 Indicators of Marital and Family Status (in percent), by Race, 1960-1985 Black Indicator White and Year White Black Difference Women aged 15-4~4 living with husbands 1960 69 52 17 1970 61 42 19 1980 55 30 25 1985 55 28 27 Births to unmarred women 1960 2 22 20 1970 6 35 29 1980 11 55 44 1985 14 60 46 Families with children under 18 headed by a woman 1960 6 24 18 1970 9 33 24 1980 14 48 34 1985 15 50 35 Children under age 18 in mother-only families 1960 6 20 14 1970 8 29 21 1980 14 44 30 1985 16 51 35 Note: Data for 1960 refer to whites and nonwhites. Sources: Data Tom decennial censuses and Current Population Surveys. second husband. According to the rates of the 1975-1980 period, white women could expect to spend 33 of their 77-year life span as a wife while black women would spend 16 of their 73-year life span with a husband-a black-white difference of 17 years. In 1955-1960, the difference was 11 years, 40 years with a husband for a white woman and 29 years for a black woman. The first panel of Table 10-1 shows the proportion of black and white women of childbearing age (15-44) living with husbands and black- white differences since 1960. Given the delay in first marriage and the decreasing length of the typical marriage, it is not surprising that a sharply rising proportion of births are delivered to unmarried women, a trend that is illustrated in the second panel of Table 10-1. The fact that young women are delaying their marriages much more than their childbearing and that women are separating but not remarrying so rapidly is reflected in two other important indicators shown in the bottom two panels of Table 10-1: the percentage of families with children headed by a woman and the percentage of all children living in female-headed families. 522

CHILDREN AND FAMILIES A smaller proportion of children (persons under age 18) are living with both their parents: in 1985, 51 percent of all black children lived with their ~ . . . . . ~ · . , /- ~ ~ · . 1 · 1 1 . mothers but not with their lathers; 1o percent or the white cnnaren are In mother-only families. Furthermore, these percentages, based on cross-sec- tional data, underestimate the proportion of children who spend some time in a single-parent family. Combining estimates of the proportion of children born to unmarried women (such children usually begin life in a mother-only family) with estimates of children who will experience the separation or divorce of their parents before they reach age 18, Bumpass (1984) projects that 42 percent of white children and 86 percent of black children are likely to spend some time in a single-parent household, usually a mother-only family. An important implication of these trends is the apparent changing sexual division of labor with regard to child rearing. That is, women without a husband increasingly find themselves responsible for this activity. Between 1960 and 1985, the percentage of families that were headed by a woman increased from 22 to 44 percent among blacks; the proportion of white families headed by a woman increased from 8 to 13 percent. Trends in each of the indicators shown in Table 10-1 and Figure 10-6 are parallel for blacks and whites, but the magnitude of change has been much more accentuated for blacks. These demographic data unambiguously de- scribe an increasing black-white difference with regard to the family living arrangements of adults and their children. The large prevalence of single- parent families has important implications for the resources available to children and the comparative future well-being of blacks and whites. Poverty among families headed by women is much higher than poverty · ~ ~ · ~ ~ '1 - ~ 1 1 1 '~ among husband-wlte tamales. for clacks, of percent of all children living in female-headed families were in poverty in 1986. Because of the underlying unequal distribution of income and wealth between single- and two-parent families with children and the higher proportion of black children in single- parent families, 43 percent of all black children under age 18 lived in families below the poverty level in 1986. Among white children, 16 percent lived in poor families. Family background conditions of poverty income levels and very low wealth place many black children at considerable risk of having health problems, a poor education, and poor future employment prospects (see Chapters 6-8~. CHILDREN AND POVERTY: CONSEQUENCES OF FAMILY CHANGE Because many of the women who head "poverty" households were poor before they became mothers and household heads, the often cited "femini- zation of poverty" may be partly illusory. The phrase implies that these households are poor because of their female heads, but as Bane (1986) suggested, family breakups may merely reshuffle the female poor from one classification to another. Nevertheless, the combination of increased female, single-parent households with child care responsibilities and low earning 523

A COMMON DESTINY: BLACKS AND AMERICAN SOCIETY FIGURE 10-6 Living arrangements of (a) black and (b) white children under age 18, 1960-1985. Black Children 90 80 70 Z 60 CC LL CL 50 40 30 20 10 o Both Parents 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1960 1965 1970 1975 YEAR 1980 1984 (b) White Children 100 90 80 70 Z 60 IL 50 40 30 20 10 Neither Parent Both Parents O 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1960 Father Only 1965 1970 1975 1980 YEAR Notes: Data are standardized for age of children. Data for 1960 refer to nonwhites. Source: Data from Current Population Surveys. 524 1984

CHILDREN AND FAMILIES opportunities exacerbates the problem of continued high rates of poverty among black families. Clearly, the mere fact that a household is headed by a woman does not mean that it will be poor. But several mechanisms by which poverty comes to be strongly associated with female-headed families have been identified. First, many families are kept above the poverty line only because of two employed adults. A single-parent family is more likely to be poor simply because there is usually only one earner. Second, women on the average earn much less than men; so even among single-parent families, those with a female head are much more likely to be poor than those with a male head. Third, young black women who form single-parent households predomi- nantly come from poor households and often lack the requisite skills for high earnings. Fourth, in the absence of relatively inexpensive day care, many single mothers of young children cannot earn enough from outside employ- ment to justify working (see Chapter 6~. Fifth, the birth of a child may disrupt the education or job experience of the mother, thus further reducing . . ~ . her opportunities tor earnings. Perhaps the most striking manifestation of these mechanisms is the grow- ing division between the economic status of two-parent and female-headed families. Black husband-wife families have nearly 3 times the median income of black female-headed families. This inequality between family types among blacks has important consequences for the welfare of future generations. Black husband-wife families in 1985 were 51 percent of all black families but had 70 percent of total black family income; female-headed black families were 44 percent of black families but had 25 percent of black family income. For white families, these differentials were far less: overall, 52 percent of black families headed by a woman were in poverty compared with 27 percent of the white female-headed families. The effects of mother-only families on the subsequent education, occupa- tion, income, and marital status of children as they grow up have been extensively studied. The sheer absence of a father may not be a crucial factor, and some fathers of children in female-headed households are actively in- volved with the children (Furstenberg, 1976~. Unfortunately, much of the available research has not adequately controlled for the confounding effects of low income, low education, the timing of marital disruption, and possibly other factors disproportionately present in female-headed families (see Mc- Lanahan, 1985~. Although the findings are not definitive, they strongly suggest that as compared with children of two-parent families, children from one-parent families have lower scores on standardized tests of IQ and edu- cational achievement, lower educational attainment, lower occupational status and income, and higher rates of early marriage, births to unmarried women, and marital dissolution. After controlling the educational attainment and occupational status of the household head and number of siblings, Duncan (1967:366) found that the presence of two parents in a nonwhite man's household at age 16 was associated with an additional 0.43 to 0.77 year of schooling among cohorts 525

A COMMON DESTINY: BLACKS AND AMERICAN SOCIETY born between 1916 and 1950. Controlling these same variables, plus farm and southern origin, Featherman and Hauser (1976:114) found that the educational attainments of black men born as recently as 1937-1951 were about 0.4 year lower when both parents were not present at age 16. The mean difference in schooling between black and white men was 1.4 years in the cohorts born from 1937 to 1946 and 1.1 years in the cohorts born from 1947 to 1951. Thus, elimination of single-parent families-without altering other socioeconomic background factors-would have reduced the difference in educational attainments between black and white men by 27.2 percent in the birth cohort of 1937-1946 and by 39.4 percent in the birth cohort of 1947-1951. There is some evidence that the effects of living in a single-parent family declined between cohorts born just after World War I and those born just after World War II (Featherman and Hauser, 1976, 1978:330-331~. Yet, family instability does not lead directly to an additional deficit in occupa- tional success among black men beyond its effect through years of completed schooling (Duncan and Duncan, 1969; Featherman and Hauser, 1976, 1978~. Duncan and Duncan reported that the effects of schooling on occu- pational success are greater among (black or white) men raised in two-parent families than those raised in single-parent families. This effect is very likely a result of more schooling of men from two-parent families combined with the strong effect of high levels of schooling on occupational standing. The differences in educational performance and attainment of children in female-headed and two-parent families are reduced when the socioeconomic status of the family is controlled, but daughters of single mothers are them- selves especially likely to become unmarried mothers. Whether or not a mother in a single-parent family works outside the home seems to have few clear measured effects on young children; the sheer fact of employment status, if any, is overshadowed by the economic and marital status of the mother (see Garfinkel and McLanahan, 1986:26-37; Hayes, 198~. The consequences of single parenthood are especially marked when teen- agers in low-income families bear children. Teenage mothers are now much more likely than previously to be unmarried and to keep their children. Infants born to such mothers are disproportionately of low birthweight-a condition that often forecasts serious health problems and infant mortality (see Chapter 8~. Furthermore, they are likely to receive poor nutrition and inadequate medical care and to live in poverty. These conditions increase the likelihood of a high incidence of single motherhood as these children in turn become teenagers (see Danziger, 1986~. CAUSES OF CHANGING FAMILY PATTERNS There is no single family structure that fully represents the diversity of familial arrangements among black Americans of the past or present. The Africans who were brought to the New World as slaves came from many 526

CHILDREN AND FAMILIES different cultures and experienced highly varying conditions after their arri- val. It is not possible to say how much of the African-American family tradition is African and how much was developed in the New World (Du- Bois, 1903; Frazier, 1939; Gutman, 1976; Herskovits, 1941~. Doubtless both sources were important. There were different modes of introduction to the American continent (McAdoo and Terborg-Penn, 1985; Sudarkasa, 1981~. Not all Africans came as slaves. A few came as explorers and adventurers, some as freemen before the beginning of slavery, and some who came as indentured servants even- tually earned their freedom. Thus, black families varied greatly in legal, economic, and social status. Many of the free and freed black families were headed by entrepreneurs, professionals, artisans, landowners, and business- men. This small but important black elite contrasted with the majority of blacks who had to struggle to maintain themselves under conditions of economic deprivation and social disruption. Blacks evinced a remarkable loyalty to the family unit in the face of the disruptive treatment of their families by many slaveowners. When families were not broken apart by the slavery system, nuclear family units of two parents and their children were common. Some families were headed by females and many kinship units were extended, often including grandparents and grandchildren. Other relatives and their young children could be part of a single household. Near-dwelling relatives formed networks of mutual aid and social support (Gutman, 1976; McAdoo, 1987:6-7~. For enslaved blacks, the family was important since it was the primary black institution to which they could openly be committed. Individuals married early and, if necessary, frequently. An important illustration of the extent to which the family was part of the fabric of the Afro-American community was given by the frantic searches carried out after the Civil War by freed people looking for family members from whom they had been separated during slavery. Similarly, thousands of former slaves immediately legitimized marriages that had not been legally recognized by the slave codes. It is important to remember that the institution of slavery did not destroy the black family (Franklin, 1980; Gutman, 1976; Litwack, 1979~. An inventory of possible explanations for the recent decreasing prevalences and the greater instability of marriage among blacks (compared with whites) is long. The most salient proposed explanations include differences in social class and economic position; family assistance benefits; changes in men's and women's economic status; scarcity of men; and a culture of poverty. In this section we comment on each of these hypotheses. First, however, we discuss some important background information as a context. THE RESI Ll ENCE OF BLACK FAMI Ll ES A striking finding of modern historical research on black families is that stable two-parent families were maintained during slavery and survived the 527

A COMMON DESTINY: BLACKS AND AMERICAN SOCIETY vicissitudes of poverty, migration, and urbanization (Billingsley, 1968; Gut- man, 1976; Pleck, 1979~. As Herbert Gutman (1976) concluded: At all moments in time between 1880 and 1925-that is, Tom an adult generation born in slavery to an adult generation about to be devastated by the Great Depression of the 1930s and the modernization of southern agriculture afterward-the typical AEo-Amer~can family was lowerclass in status and headed by two parents.... This was so in the urban and rural south in 1880 and 1900 and in New York City in 1905 and 1925. The two-parent black family continued to be common among farm laborers, sharecroppers, tenants, and northern and southern blacks in the great migra- tion to the North that so reshaped the United States in the twentieth century. Poverty and high mortality among black men did indeed result in a greater proportion of female-headed families among blacks than among whites, but even after the Great Depression, in 1940, nearly three-fourths of black families with children under 18 were headed by two parents (see Engerman, 1977~. There was no significant increase in male-absent households even after the massive migrations to the urban North. Until the 1960s, 75 percent of black households with a child under age 18 included both husband and wife (see Table 10-1~. The dramatic changes came only later, and in 1986, 49 percent of black families with children under age 18 were headed by women. Since black nuclear families and kin-related households remained intact through slavery, the Great Depression, migration, urban life, ghettoization, and pov- erty, it appears unlikely that any one of these conditions or their combina- tions can fully explain the large changes in marriage and family since 1960. More weight must be given to other factors. Furthermore, since no one family type is representative of all black families, economic and social status differences must be taken into account in any analysis of present-day black families. Especially in black-white comparisons, it is essential when possible to control for differences in income, employ- ment, education, and status of family of origin (Billingsley, 1968~. The likelihood of interaction effects between class (especially as it relates to eco- nomic status) and race makes this procedure an important precaution against misleading inferences. SOCIAL CLASS AND ECONOMIC POSITION Cross-cultural comparisons based on statistical and ethnographic data show substantial regularities in the relations between familial behaviors and basic demographic and socioeconomic conditions. A case in point is the much- discussed matter of births to unmarried women. High rates of such births are regularly associated with the following conditions (Goode et al., 1971: 301-305~: low socioeconomic status, urban residence, little education, times of economic depression, prior prevalence of divorce and separation, home background of unwed parenthood, weak parental controls over children, 528

CHILDREN AND FAMILIES and lack of severe censure or social sanctions for premarital sexual relations and pregnancy. These background conditions are often found in clusters, so that families with few economic and social resources will be least able to control youths or to reward them for confining childbearing within mar- nages. But general sociocultural changes are also at work. Thus, the post-1960 movement toward less rigid sexual norms may have increased the incidence of single motherhood, as suggested by the recent rise among whites. General economic changes also have significant effects. And there is other evidence that family stability in general is higher in social strata of higher prestige, income, and wealth, and in stable communities of close social interdepen- dence (Williams, 1970:Ch. IV). Blacks continue to lag far behind whites on most indicators of economic and educational status. And it is known that desertion, births to unmarried women, and female-headed families are more common among the poor than the well-to-do. Thus, a prominent hypothesis is that black-white differences in family structure can be explained by black-white differences in social class or economic status. This is a difficult issue to disentangle since family status and economic condition are reciprocally related. Nevertheless, the available data surest that black-white differences in family status are indeed affected by differences in social and economic status. One example of such an effect concerns marital dissolution. Studies con- ducted in the 1970s reported that black marriages are about twice as likely as those of whites to be ended by disruption. Table 10-2 shows a comparison of the marital status distributions of blacks and whites, both actual and controlling for differences in educational attainment for men and women and for income distribution for men. Rows (1) and (2) for both men and women show the actual marital status distribution of whites and blacks. Rows (3) show what the marital status distribution of blacks would be if they had the educational distribution of whites but their own education- specific marital status distributions. If black-white differences in marital status were entirely due to differences in educational attainment, then the marital statuses of blacks and whites would be the same once the differences in education (if perfectly measured) were controlled, that is, the figures on rows (1) and (3) would be identical. It is dear they are not similar, and thus, differences in mean years of schooling account for little of the black-white difference in marital status. Data for women lead to a similar conclusion. When educational attainment differences are taken into account, it is still found that black women are more likely to be single or formerly married than white women and much less likely to be living with a husband. Data in row (4) of Table 10-2 take black-white differences in the income of men into account. A comparison of items in rows (1) and (4) shows that controlling for income reduces the black-white disparities substantially. Hence, one can infer that income plays an important role in explaining black-white differences in the marital status of men. If, instead of their own income distribution, black men had the income distribution of white men, 529

A COMMON DESTINY: BLACKS AND AMERICAN SOCIETY TABLE 10-2 Marital Status of Men and Women Aged 35 41 (in percent), by Race, 1980 Married More First Married Than Marriages Once, Once, Separated, Ended by Never Spouse Spouse Widowed, or Divorce Sex and Race Married Present Present Divorced (estimated) Men White (1) Actual marital status 7 66 16 11 29 Black (2) Actual marital status 14 49 12 25 42 (3) Assuming white ed ucational attainment 13 51 13 23 40 (4) Assuming white in come distribution 9 56 15 20 37 Women White (1) Actual marital status Black (2) Actual marital status (3) Assuming white ed ucational attainment 12 42 13 40 65 15 15 30 9 38 48 9 37 47 Source: Data from Bureau of the Census (1980:Tables 3, 6). their marital status distribution would (assuming a direct causal influence) be more like that of white men. However, this analysis does not fully test the hypothesis that differences in family and marital status are due to class or economic differences because it does not compare marital status between blacks and whites of identical socioeconomic status. The data here-and in every other study of which we are aware-do not allow such comparisons.) In addition, many correlates of income are uncontrolled in the available data. Nevertheless, we infer that socioeconomic differences explain a signifi- cant amount of black-white marital status differences and very likely would explain more, given better data to test the hypothesis. 1. There are two primary reasons that such comparisons are difficult. Consider a random sample of blacks and whites of a population taken from a census; within any income interval- say $20,000-$25,000-the sample of blacks will be more concentrated toward the low end than will the sample of whites. In addition, blacks in the interval will have been earning that income for a shorter period of time and will have a lower expectation of having a larger income in the future and lower wealth (see Chapter 6~. Thus, cross-sectional comparisons of this type usually leave substantial variation in socioeconomic class between blacks and whites. 530

CHILDREN AND FAMILIES FAMI LY ASSISTANCE BEN EFITS Because family assistance benefits are available to low-income, single-parent families, they have been seen as rewarding such families and thus encouraging their formation. It has been said to allow pregnant unmarried women to decide to bear and then keep their children. It has also been claimed that assistance payments allow unhappily married parents to split up. In the absence of assistance payments, according to this hypothesis, women and men would have to find other options, and they might be more careful to avoid forming single-parent households. In addition, benefit payments may allow a young woman to live in her own household rather than sharing a residence with her parents. This hypothesis implies that (all other factors being constant) where benefit levels are higher, births to unmarried women, divorce rates, and the number of single-parent families living independently would also be higher. A large number of studies have tried to exploit the large variation in benefits across states in order to assess the impact of public assistance (U.S. House of Representatives 1987:371-372, 578~. In 1986, for example, Tennessee and Mississippi paid less than $150 monthly for a family of three, while places in New York and California paid close to $700. Adding the value of food stamps reduces the variation somewhat, but the combined benefits still vary from $400 to close to $800 per month (see Chapter 6~. In spite of these large variations, recent studies have found only modest associations between changes in family structure and family assistance benefit levels. The associa- tion of benefit levels with the overall number of female-headed families is usually reported to be statistically detectable but quite small (Ellwood and Bane, 1985; Garfinkel and McLanahan, 1986; Ross and Sawhill, 1975~. Ellwood and Summers (1986) found that there is no correlation between the percentage of black children in single-parent households and the level of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) benefits in different states. And the number of black children living in female-headed households rose sharply during the 1970s while the number of such households receiving AFDC declined. Other studies have tried to measure the impact of family assistance benefits on specific family structure events, such as divorce or unmarried childbear- ing. A few studies have reported some effects of assistance on divorce, but these effects are generally small. Using the same longitudinal data, a number of investigators have differed in their conclusions as to whether benefits have an impact on divorce. Moore and Waite (1976) found a small impact in one data set and none in another. Groeneveld and colleagues (1980) inferred significant effects from the negative income tax (NIT) experiments in Seattle and Denver, but these findings have been questioned by Cain and Wissoker (1987-1988~. Other NIT sites seem to have shown no impact. Ellwood and Bane (1985) report small effects overall, but a larger effect for marriages that were formed when the wife was very young. Collectively, the evidence is that family assistance benefits play a small part in divorce decisions. 531

A COMMON DESTINY: BLACKS AND AMERICAN SOCIETY Much attention has been given to the Seattle-Denver experiments with a negative income tax. Early reports claimed that NIT resulted in increased rates of marriage dissolution; however, an elaborate reanalysis of the data has rejected that conclusion. Using the full sample and all years of the experi- ment for which data are available, the reanalysis concluded that the pure NIT program (without training provisions) had no effect on marital stability of any statistical or practical significance (Cain and Wissoker, 1987-1988: 14) . Research has shown even less association between family assistance benefits and births to unmarried women. There is little or no relationship between aggregate benefit levels and rates of illegitimacy (Cutright, 1970; Ellwood and Bane, 1985; Moore and Caldwell, 1976~. A major review of research concluded that family assistance has little systematic impact on family struc- ture (Duncan et al., 1988:468~; for example, AFDC payments have no measurable effects on births to unmarried women, although they may affect household living arrangements. Most of those who have reviewed the litera- ture have come to a conclusion similar to that reported in a recent National Research Council study (Hayes, 1987:119) on teenage pregnancy: Concern over the high rates of welfare dependency in the United States have led many critics to question whether the availability of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and other, non-cash benefits is an un- fortunate incentive for young women to give birth outside of marnage. The existing body of research suggests there is no evidence to support this assumption. While the availability of cash benefits apparently does not lead women to bear additional children, it may reduce the likelihood that an unmarried pregnant woman marries in haste (Moore and Burt, 1982:108-113~. It may also lessen the likelihood that she obtains an abortion, and so increase the proportion of unmarried women who keep their children rather than placing them for adoption. The availability of higher family assistance payments is also associated with a lesser likelihood that a mother remarries rapidly after termination of her previous marriage (Hutchens, 1979~. Perhaps the strongest effect identified in the literature is on living arrange- ments of single mothers-whether they live with a parent or live separately. The increasing proportion of female-headed households reported by Census Bureau surveys partly reflects a change in living arrangements rather than only the prevalence of single parenthood. If an unmarried mother lives in the household of her parents or other relatives, she and her children consti- tute a subfamily. If she moves into a separate residence, the mother-children unit will be recorded as a female-headed family. The availability of AFDC appears to encourage single mothers to form their own households (Ellwood and Bane, 1985~. Some social commentators question the research results that show few significant effects of family assistance benefits. But the pattern of such bene- fits over time adds to the credibility of the conclusion of small or nonexistent effects. There were large increases in benefits during the 1960s and early 532

CHILDREN AND FAMILIES 1970s. In 1984 constant dollars, national average benefits for AFDC were roughly $560 per month in 1960; by 1972, the value of the combination of AFDC increases and food stamps was almost $750, and in-kind benefits such as medical protection (Medicaid) had also increased. In addition, various rules-such as unannounced searches of beneficiaries' homes and against a man in the house-had been relaxed or eliminated. As might be expected, the number of people receiving benefits grew rapidly during the period. But since the early 1970s, benefits have not come close to keeping pace with inflation; the national average real value of AFDC and food stamp benefits in the mid-1980s was about $580-only slightly above the 1960 level (al- though Medicaid is now also available). And administrative rules have been further relaxed since then. Yet, even though the proportion of children in female-headed families has grown, the fraction of children on AFDC has remained roughly steady since 1973. According to Ellwood and Summers (1986~: 1 The figures are even more dramatic for blacks: Between 1972 and 1980 [pnor to the Reagan era] the number of black children in female headed families rose nearly 10 percent; the number of black children on AFDC actually fell by 5 percent. If AFDC were pulling families apart and enabling the formation of single-parent families, it is hard to understand why the number of children on the program would remain constant. throughout the period in our history when family structures changed the most. If increased family assistance benefits caused more single-parent families to form, it is hard to explain why the trend continued when benefits were effectively cut back sharply (see also Garfinkel and McLanahan, 1986:55- 56). Some critics, notably Murray (1984), have questioned these conclusions, arguing that the early increase in family assistance benefits may have perma- nently changed attitudes. Murray also believes that the mere availability of benefits may influence family formation decisions, but that variations above some threshold make little difference. This latter argument would be plausi- ble only if nearly all people had an identical and very low threshold; other- wise, more people should be across the threshold in high-benefit states than in low-benefit ones. If there is a threshold so low that it had no impact in Mississippi in 1985, then there really is no way to determine whether bene- fits had any effects, and many states presumably would have crossed the threshold even by 1960. Perhaps more important, Murray's argument sug- gests that even large increases or declines in benefits would have little impact on family structure. In any case, the availability of some family assistance has not abolished poverty for children. Indeed, the percentage of children living in poverty in the United States (in 1979 or 1981) was higher by at least 60 percent than the equivalent proportion in any of five other countries stud- ied: United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway, Canada, and West Germany (Smeeding and Smeeding, 1985: 13) . 533

A COMMON DESTINY: BLACKS AND AMERICAN SOCIETY CHANGES IN MEN'S AND WOMEN'S ECONOMIC STATUS The Declining Economic Fortunes of ME Recently, several researchers have emphasized male joblessness as a factor in the decline of marriage and the increasing proportion of children being born to unmarried women. Wilson (1987) hypothesized that falling employ- ment among black men-described in this report (Chapter 6)-may make marriage less attractive to both men and women. Wilson and Neckerman (1986) noted that the ratio of employed black men to women in the younger age groups has fallen precipitously in recent years and largely mimics the changes in marriage rates. Beginning in 1965, the relative odds of black males aged 16-24 being employed in comparison with white males dropped sharply until about 1977 and then leveled off. As of 1985, a black male was about 2.5 times as likely as a white male to be unemployed or out of the labor force (see Chapter 6~. In other work, Wilson and his colleagues have re- ported that marriage rates generally declined most in those regions of the country where the ratio of employed black men to employed white men has declined most. Wilson emphasized joblessness, but even the earnings of fully employed men generally (both whites and blacks) have been hit hard. As described in Chapters 1 and 6, for the first time since World War II, the real earnings of full-year, full-time male workers-both black and white-have not risen in more than a decade. Earnings for fully employed workers peaked in 1973 and have yet to regain that level. Only a few researchers have so far studied the potential significance of this period of no growth in real earnings. Levy (1987) showed just how dramatic the changes have been. The earnings of the cohort of men aged 25-34 in 1949 grew an average of 57 percent in the next decade (adjusting for infla- tion). Similarly, the earnings of men aged 25-34 in 1959 had grown an average of 52 percent by 1969. By contrast, the earnings of men aged 25-34 in 1973 actually fell slightly over the next decade. For men aged 35-44 in 1949 and 1959, the increases were roughly 30 percent in the subsequent decade, but during the decade since 1973, their earnings fell 15 percent. Faltering male earnings alone cannot be the whole story, however, for changes in family structure were significant even during the 1960s when the economy was booming. Still, if many young men are unemployed and if young male workers can no longer count on a growing level of earnings, then both marriage and divorce decisions may be seriously affected. There is significant research documenting at least some association between male joblessness and family stress (Garfinkel and McLanahan, 1986~. Careful em- pirical work examining the links between the economic fortunes of black men and the family structure in the black community is only recently re- emerging after a long period of dormancy. The connections of family and economic status define a fruitful area for focused research (see Easterlin, 1980~ 1982). 534

CHILDREN AND FAMILIES Labor Force Pariwipatum and Economy States of Women A different explanation for the change in family structure argues that with increased labor force participation, women are no longer so dependent on men for support, and thus there is less pressure to marry and less need for either partner to remain in a marriage that is unsatisfactory. Conversely, increased labor market opportunities for women might be seen as increasing the financial security of married couples and thus making marriage look even more attractive. Particularly since the early 1970s, the educational attainments of women have increased, their labor force participation rates have risen sharply, and there is evidence suggesting a significant upgrading of the occupational dis- tribution of employed women (Bianchi and Rytina, 1986; Bianchi and Spain, 1986:Ch. 4, 5; Blau and Ferber, 1985; Reskin and Hartmann, 1986:Ch. 2~. As the employment of black men decreased, black women have experienced rising employment and relative earnings. Thus, the high rates of joblessness among black men may reduce the incentives of unmarried women to marry or of formerly married women to remarry. Have black women, in some sense, become economically independent at a faster rate than white women? Does this change explain the growing black- white gap in marital status and family living arrangements? It is extremely difficult to test the hypothesis that marriage is declining in usefulness to women since it is not easy to determine whether the increase in the eco- nomic independence of women is a cause or a consequence of changes in marital and family status. However, some evidence implies that, relative to men, women have become more independent in an economic sense and that this change has occurred more rapidly for blacks than for whites. For every decade from 1940 to 1980 and at every educational level, a higher proportion of black than of white women were in the labor force. The differences were larger for women with more educational attainment: for example, for women with 16 or more years of schooling, the percentage differences between black and white labor force participation were signifi- cant: 1940: + 16 1950: +23 1960: +28 1970: +24 1980: + 13 It has long been the case that black women worked for pay outside the home and contributed to family income. Between 1950 and 1980, the income of black women relative to that of black men rose rapidly-from about 29 percent in 1950 to about 70 percent in 1970, with a drop to 63 percent in 1985 (Farley and Neidert, 1986:Tables D,E). Table 10-3 presents data on median earnings of women as a percentage of that of men of the same race for the post-World War II era. The top panel 535

A COMMON DESTINY: BLACKS AND AMERICAN SOCIETY TABLE 10-3 Median Earnings or Income of Women as a Percentage of That of Men, by Race, 1947-193 Earnings Indicator and Year Black (or Nonwhite) White Median wage and salary earnings for all adults a reporting earnings 947b 34 1954b 43 1959[ 45 1964b 48 1969 46v 1974 55 1979 65 1983 78 Median wage and salary earnings for fi~ll-iirne, year-round employees 1954b 58 1959 b 66 1g~b 62 1969b 69 974b 73 1979c 74 1983C 78 Median income for total persons receiving income 1948t 1954b 1959 b l964b 1969 1974 1979 1983 aAdults were defined as persons aged 14 and over Tom 1947 to 1974 and aged 15 and over at later dates. bData for these years refer to nonwhites. CThese data refer to total earnings, not just wage and salary earnings. Source: Data Tom Current Population Surveys. 36 42 41 38 47 52 52 62 54 55 49 49 46v 45 45 51 64 61 59 58 57 59 61 45 38 31 31 32 35 36 42 shows that the median earnings of black women rose faster than those of black men. In 1947, the wage and salary earnings of black women were 34 percent of those of black men; by 1983 women's earnings were 78 percent of those of men's. The pattern of change was different among whites: the median earnings of women fell as a percentage of men's from 54 percent in 1ClA7 .~ ~1 ~+ ;- 1492 The nottPrnc carp the some for fuH-time, year 1 ;7 = / L JO I ~ ~ ~ t ~ ~1 1 ~ 1 1 1 ~ ~ v ~ . ^ , ~ _ ~ ~ . . _ ., ~ v ~ ~ round employees. The bottom panel presents data on tne median income or UA~V~ pcr~oll~ who received any income during the year. Income differs from earnings since it includes money received from dividends, interest, or investments, as well as transfer payments such as Social Security, AFDC, or veterans' benefits. For the past two decades, the income of women has risen faster than that of 536

CHILDREN AND FAMILIES men. Again, a substantial black-white difference is evident: the male-female disparity in income is much smaller now among blacks than among whites. The hypothesis that increased economic independence of women leads to increased divorce and separation is generally consistent with the research findings (Garfinkel and McLanahan, 1986:63-68~. Although a more com- plex picture emerges from the studies of the effects of male joblessness, the results point to loss of jobs and the stagnation of male earnings as factors in the increase of black female-headed families. A crucial mechanism may be a scarcity of black men who are able to support families. There are substantial shortages of such men for the women most likely to become unmarried mothers-central-city residents with little education and from low-income backgrounds (Wilson and Aponte, 1985; see Chapter 6~. Even though women's incomes have increased and they are able to enjoy more choice and economic independence, it remains true that if women were to combine their incomes with those of a husband, their economic choices and well-being would be even greater. It could be argued, then, that women retain an economic incentive to marry and use their incomes to support families. SCARCITY OF "MARRIAGEABLE" MEN A hypothesis that is complementary to the two previous explanations is that changes in the family structure of blacks may result from a shortage of black men for women to marry (see Cox, 1940~. Guttentag and Secord (1983:Ch. 8) examined the ratio of men to women and observed that it is uniquely low among blacks (see also Spanier and Glick, 1986; Wilson, 1978:72-92). If women frequently marry men who are 2-3 years older than themselves, a sex ratio disparity is inevitable in a growing population. In a population increasing by 2 percent per year-about the growth rate for the black popu- lation for a decade or so after World War II-the number of women born in any year will be about 6 percent greater than the number of men born 3 years earlier. Given this fact, is the ratio of marriageable black men to black women significantly less than that of whites, as Guttentag and Secord sug- gested? The ratios of unmarried men aged 20-26 to unmarried women aged 18- 24 between 1940 and 1985 are shown in Figure 10-7. The unmarried category includes all single, widowed, divorced, and currently separated persons (including married people whose spouse is absent). Figure 10-7a presents data from the decennial censuses and the March 1985 Current Population Survey. The trend lines show the demographic effects of the post-World War II baby boom. Women who reached marriageable ages in the 1960s or early 1970s found themselves competing for relatively few men. The population growth rate has slowed since that time, and the situation has improved for women of both races seeking marriage. However, at all dates, there apparently were fewer men per 100 women among blacks than 537

A COMMON DESTI NY: BLACKS AN D AMERICAN SOCI ETY FIGURE 10-7 Unmarned men aged 20-26 per 100 unmarred women aged 18-24, (a) actual and (b) adjusted, by race, 1940-1985. 120 Z 110 _ _ ~ '_ 100 o A By LL 80 _ 70 . 1940 1950 . _ (a) Census Bureau Enumerations `` White _ __ - 1 90 80 _ 70 1 1 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1985 1960 1970 YEAR 120 (b) Data Adjusted for Undercount Z 110 LU ~ 100 o o - z ~~~~ ~~~_ White - - ~I 1980 1985 1 1 1 YEAR Sources: Data Tom decennial censuses, Coale (1955), Passel and Robinson (1984), and Siegel (1974). among whites. According to these data, the sex ratio for these young un- married persons in 1985 was 102 men per 100 women for whites but only 85 men per 100 women for blacks. But it is known that the census enumeration misses many black men. Figure 10-7b presents data adjusted for net census undercount. The correc- tion produces a modest effect on the sex ratio of whites but makes a dramatic change for blacks, which reduces the black-white discrepancy. On the basis of these corrected data, it may be conduded that black women face a somewhat tighter marriage market than white women. For both races, how- ever' the problem of a shortage of "appropriately" aged men was most acute 538

CHILDREN AND FAMILIES in the 1960s and has diminished since then. Hence, this factor alone cannot account for the post-1960 decline in marriage rates. Ratios of unmarried men to unmarried women are very crude indicators of the composition of a marriage market, however. Women may exclude from their marriage considerations not only unmarried men they consider too old or too young, but also those who are incarcerated, who have educational attainment deemed too little or too much, and who have low income. Marital "availability ratios," which take all of these factors into account, have been developed by Goldman and colleagues (1984:7-8~. Using their procedure, we calculated marital availability ratios for age ranges using data about actual marriage patterns in 1980. The data for blacks show that unmarried women above age 22 are in marriage pools that contain relatively few men. For unmarried women at age 25, for example, there were 931 men per 1,000 women. After age 28, the availability ratios for black women fall sharply, and at these ages, there is a substantial shortage of men; for example, for unmarried black women at age 34, the ratio is 642 men per 1,000 women. Black men can select from a large pool of unmarried women. At ages 25 and over, black men are in a marriage market in which there are 1,100- 1,200 unmarried women per 1,000 unmarried men. Similar availability ratios existed for whites in 1985. The same pattern of changes over the age range is evident for both races, but there is a very large black-white difference. The availability ratios for white women, compared with those for black women, are quite high, and until their late 20s, white women (except the least educated) are competing in marriage pools where there is sex parity. At older ages, the sex disparity is much smaller among whites. Figure 10-8 presents marital availability ratios for three educational levels for each race. Since it was assumed that people with 12 years of education could marry anyone, the availability ratios are highest for this group. In fact, the only black women who are in marriage markets where they are outnum- bered by black men are at this attainment level. Black women with other attainments face much more competitive marriage markets. At age 26, those black women with less than a high school education are in a marriage pool that has 651 men per 1,000 women. For black women at this age with some college education, the ratio is 772 per 1,000 women. While black-white differences in available marriage partners for women may partially explain the large differences in marital and family patterns of black and white women, it is not clear how this condition can explain the growing racial divergence. An additional factor is the growing black-white difference in the proportion of working-age males who are employed. For both the 16-24 and 25-54 age groups, the proportion of black men with jobs has declined more rapidly than the proportion of white men with jobs (see Chapter 6~. This trend suggests that the pool of "desirable" (e.g., employed) marriage partners may have grown more slowly for black than white women in recent years, especially if factors beyond educational attainment and age are considered. Overall, when age, education, employment, and other spou , ~7 ~7 539

A COMMON DESTINY: BLACKS AND AMERICAN SOCIETY FIGURE 10-8 Marital availability ratios for black and white men and women (aged 26), by educational attainment, 1985. 1 ,400 co LLI 1,200 6 ~ 1,000 By ~ 800 o O 600 o o ~ 400 200 > 1 YEAR OF COLLEGE Note: Data adjusted for census undercount. HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATE _ _~ ~ Black =1 White < 12 YEARS OF HIGH SCHOOL sal characteristics are added to the definition of available marriage partners, we conclude that male availability, as defined here, helps to explain the growing black-white differences in marital and family status. We note that the availability ratios have increased since 1970, indicating that the "marriage squeeze" associated with the baby-boom cohorts has diminished. Accordingly, women reaching the ages of highest marriage rates in the late 1980s can select from a larger pool of men than those who reached marriageable ages 15 or 20 years ago. THE CULTURE-OF-POVERTY HYPOTHESIS An old and recurrently popular argument holds that poor and segregated populations develop a distinctive set of beliefs, values, and behavior patterns that tend to perpetuate their condition (Lewis, 1955; Rainwater, 1970~. Once established, such a subculture-which may be initially adaptive to the given circumstances-is thought to acquire partial independence that works against its people's breaking out of the "poverty trap" through negative feedback effects. The strong version of the culture-of-poverty hypothesis (Lewis, 1966:xiv) 540

CHILDREN AND FAMILIES contends that poverty is perpetuated from generation to generation by rea- son of distinctive norms and values that children learn at an early age and that interfere with educational and occupational advancement. Among these alleged values are self-indulgence, low aspirations for education, and unwill- ingness to sacrifice for future attainment. Clearly, however, all these imputed values could be inferred from behavior that is based solely on poverty it- self: people living on the margin of subsistence simply will be unable to save money, to defer eating, or to realistically plan for higher education. As Schiller has pointed out (1984:101~: The culture of poverty hypothesis requires rather stringent evidence. It must be shown that the norms and aspirations-not just the behavior-of the poor are different and that these differences impede escape from pov- erty. It should also be shown whether and to what degree such differences would disappear under changing socioeconomic circumstances. To be productive, discussions of the culture-of-poverty concept require clarity in the drawing of several important distinctions. First, "culture" cannot be equated with typical or average patterns of behavior; if the concept is purely descriptive of behavior, it is not needed. Second, if culture refers to the sum of learned behavior transmitted from the past, it is not sufficiently specific to serve as an explanatory variable to account for current behavior. Third, if culture consists of normative patterns (e.g., values, beliefs, knowl- edge), there are two relevant empirical questions: How closely do cultural patterns predict behavior' Does a close fit between cultural patterns and specific behaviors signify that culture causes behavior, or the reverse, or that both are produced by a third set of influences' Fourth, the culture would have to represent positive preferences, not situational exigencies: a positively valued culture (e.g., religious beliefs, language) is radically different from a set of adjustments to extreme poverty. A crucial needed observation is the speed of change when constraints and opportunities change: If jobs become available, do people who have been out of work take them? Fifth, the conventional notion of culture of poverty implies that given characteristics (values, beliefs, behaviors) are transmitted from one generation to another as self-perpetuating patterns (Lewis, 1966:19~: How frequently does this occur' Sixth, "culture of poverty" cannot be equated with all social influences arising among persons who are poor. For example, disruptive classroom behavior in some schools serving low-income populations is not in itself evidence that "culture" accounts for the behavior. Thus, an essential distinction exists between structural conditions of con- straint and opportunity and a subculture of poverty. The former points to employment possibilities, human capital characteristics, social networks, and other objective situational factors. The latter, analytically considered, refers to shared norms and values-to positive preferences as to how one should behave (see Simpson and Yinger, 1985:117~. Cultural patterns emerge over - ~^ ~ the oh ^~ ~1- T`+h^~^ -~e '~^ the ed experiences of people. If these experiences change, the ever time will be a change in culture. Responsiveness to 541 time from the she' expectable result

A COMMON DESTINY: BLACKS AND AMERICAN SOCIETY changes in opportunities is likely to be greatest when a culture is a "shadow subculture" that is not strongly valued but rather represents only adapta- tions to repeated constraints and failures (Patterson, 1981:115-125; Rod- man, 1963~. The available evidence, although scattered, is voluminous. Taken as a whole, the data and analyses we have examined throw serious doubt on the validity of the strong thesis that culture of poverty is a major cause of self- perpetuating poverty. First, many families move in and out of poverty several times over a lifetime. The chronically poor are an important minority, but ~ ' . Spells of poverty are not closely related to attitudes toward work (Duncan et al., 1988~. Primary correlates of poverty are, first, macroeconomic conditions of prosperity or depression and, second, changes in family composition (Morgan et al., 1968-1980; see Chapter 6~. Second, many poor people do not exhibit the stereotypic set of character- istics supposedly constituting the culture of poverty, such as apathy and unwillingness to defer gratification. Many are hard-working people who save when they can, endure numerous deprivations, worry about the future, and urge their children to do well in school and on the job. Third, studies that have compared attitudes toward work, education, government family assis- tance benefits, and aspirations for family life have found that poor and nonnoor neonle do not differ significantly in stated values and goals. For example, a study of people in the Work Incentive ~N) program-who were receiving AFDC and required by law to participate in the program- concluded that there is virtually no evidence that a preference for assistance payments induces mothers to continue receiving them (Goodwin, 1983:45- 46~. What does happen is that receiving such assistance tends to isolate recipients and to create expectations of continuing to do so. Some recent studies using longitudinal data found little evidence that attitudes cause poverty or dependency on assistance (Hill et al., 1985; O'Neill et al., 1984~. Ethnographic research has consistently found that work for pay that will support a decent living standard-as opposed to some idealized ethic of work for work's sake-is a central value among low-income black men and women (Anderson, 1978, 1985; Liebow, 1967~. Reviewing several studies, Macaulay (1977) concluded that children raised in families receiving family assistance are not fated to an adulthood of poverty because of deficient values. Research of the past decade or so has noted that highly motivated youths are a frequent output of black family socialization processes (Allen, 1978; Rosen- berg and Simmons, 1971; Scanzoni, 1971~. One school of research argues that the great emphasis placed on children's achievement is a major strength of the black family as an institution (see Featherman and Hauser, 1978~. In a survey of empirical studies of family assistance dependency, Schiller (1973) concluded that mothers receiving benefits but having little opportunity to achieve upward mobility for themselves placed great emphasis on their chil- dren's future success (see also Hill, 1971~. How can such high aspirations be reconciled with low achievement in . . they are a mmonty ot all poor people ~~-^^r--- r-~r 542

CHILDREN AND FAMILIES education and labor force participation? Over 30 years ago in an experimental study of male college student aspiration levels, Hyman (1953) noted that the subjects whose aspirations "far exceeded their achievement were of pre- dominantly lower class backgrounds and from minority ethnic groups" (see also Merton, 1968; Miller, 1964~. Many studies have shown that the child- rearing and educational goals of black and white mothers, regardless of class, are much the same, but the lower class mothers often lack the skills, knowl- edge, or financial or social resources needed to interact with their children and with the relevant social institutions in ways that produce the outcomes they desire (Bronfenbrenner, 1958; Davis and Havighurst, 1946; Kamili and Radin, 1968; Lewis, 1955:157; Lightfoot, 1978~. Undoubtedly, the inse- cure and deprived conditions of life of poor families, when long continued, do result in "cultural" differences from well-to-do and secure families. Yet such differences appear to be highly responsive to changes in economic opportunities and social incentives (Iaynes, 1985:32-35; Lieberson, 1980; Steinberg, 1981~. Each of the proposed explanations of changing black family structure we are reviewing is one among several that may have causal weight. It appears likely, for example, that the effects of differences in family structures depend heavily on the social settings in which families function. The bulk of previous research shows that total effects of single-parent homes on youth delin- quency appear to be much stronger for blacks than for whites. But when mediating factors, such as social definitions of delinquency and attachments to parents and peers, are taken into account, those effects become trivial. A plausible interpretation is that single-parent families are less able than hus- band-wife families to provide supervision and to inculcate antidelinquency norms; absent this support, youths are more likely to associate with delin- quent peers and to learn prodelinquent social definitions of appropriate behavior. Thus, for example, female-headed families are not per se conducive to delinquency, but they are less likely, on average, to be able to protect children against peer-group and neighborhood influences that are conducive to delinquency (see Matsueda and Heimer, 1987~. In considering cultural characteristics, it is especially clifficult to assess their independent causal significance. In any case the culture-of-poverty thesis by itself is inadequate to account for the most recent changes we are seeking to understand. As Walker (1986:22-23) conduded on the basis of an extensive review of research: While there are differences in the patterns of beliefs and values of blacks and whites which might be construed as cultural in a broad sense of the term, the available evidence suggests that those differences are diminishing rather than increasing. This is true even among the poorest segment of the population-those who were believed to have been susceptible to the "cul- ture of poverty" (Lewis, 1965)-as well as among blacks and whites who are better off economically (Irelan, Moles, and O'Shea, 1969; Wilson, 1978~. But the differences in family patterns of the two groups are diverging rather than converging. 543

A COMMON DESTINY: BLACKS AND AMERICAN SOCIETY In short, if cultural differences have diminished over the years when family differences have increased most rapidly, there is at the least some doubt that culture of poverty is a sufficient explanation. OTHER FACTORS Many other possible factors that may affect marriages and families have been suggested-both in the professional literature and in popular commen- taries-including such diverse items as increased sexual freedom (DeLameter, 1981), changed attitudes about marriage and divorce, changes in the amount and type of television viewing, altered drug use, and peer-group cultures. For most of these, little conclusive evidence exists. The available empirical studies do show marked changes during the 1960s and 1970s among both blacks and whites regarding greater sexual permissive- ness in both attitudes and behavior (DeLameter, 1986~. But the effects of these changes on births to unmarried women were not large (see Garfinkel and McLanahan, 1986:78-84), partly because such births continue to be disapproved. Somewhat more important may be the high value placed on children among young women in low-income families, in combination with limited educational and employment opportunities. Under these conditions, single motherhood may not be regarded as highly undesirable in comparison with other life options (Hogan and Kitagawa, 1985~. Some of the available findings point to a need for multifactorial research. For example, it is known that variations in age of initiation of sexual activity account for most of the variation in rates of teenage pregnancies (Furstenberg et al., 1987), but also that contraceptive use is associated with substantially reduced rates of pregnancy among those teenagers who are sexually active. Adolescents are often surprisingly ignorant of reproductive processes and of effective contraceptive practices. Also, it has been found that several charac- teristics increase the probability of pregnancy for black teenage females: lower socioeconomic status; ghetto neighborhood; single-parent family; five or more siblings; a sister who became a teenage mother; and nonstrict parental control of dating. When all these conditions are present, in contrast to when none are present, the rate of pregnancy is 8.3 times higher (Hogan and Kitagawa, 1985:852; see also Udry and Billy, 1987); for a comprehensive review of issues concerning adolescent pregnancy, see Hayes (1987~. CONCLUSIONS Trends in the marital status of adults, the types of families, and the living arrangements of children are parallel for whites and blacks. However, they have been so much more accentuated for blacks that the marital and family experiences of the two populations have become very dissimilar. Black and white children are increasingly different with regard to their living arrangements. A majority of black children live in families that include 544

CHILDREN AND FAMILIES their mothers but not their fathers; in contrast, about four of five white children under age 18 live with both parents. Furthermore, 86 percent of black children, and 42 percent of white children, are likely to spend some time in a single-parent household, usually a mother-only family (Bumpass, 1984~. It is possible that census data understate the extent to which stable two- parent arrangements exist among unmarried couples. One cannot estimate how many fathers not counted as household members may actually aid in child rearing; there are indications that fathers of children born to unmarried women in some instances maintain continuing relationships with the mother and children. Lack of systematic data, however, makes it difficult to estimate the frequency of these relationships. The data do show, however, that only about one in five AFDC recipients receives some child support from an absent father (Duncan et al., 1988:70~. Ethnographic accounts also suggest that absent fathers contribute lircle to the economic support of these children (Liebow, 1967; Robinson, 1987; Stack, 1974~. We condude that the prev- alence is not great enough to distort seriously the description based on census and national survey data. More generally, the significance of changes in family and household char- acteristics depends greatly on features of the kinship and community context. What counts is how families function and how family members behave (Scott-Iones, 1987:70) . The small nuclear unit of husband-wife-children can be weak while the total kinship system is strong (Aschenbrenner, 1975; Bradbury and Brown, 1986; Gwaltney, 1981; Ladner, 1971; McAdoo, 1986, 1987; Stack, 1974:102-103; Willie, 1970~. Networks of relatives often sus- tain what otherwise might be fragmented families. Detailed ethnographic studies show that kinship networks often offer mutual aid, essential for minimal security for many of the urban poor. Obligations to kin, however, often compete with marriage and other stable relationships. Unemployment and low-paying, insecure jobs discourage men from marriage and sometimes render women unwilling to risk possible loss of kin support for an uncertain future with the children's father (Ladner, 1971; Stack, 1974:112-113~. Given these precarious conditions, the kin group may regard a marriage as a risk for a woman and her children and as a threat of additional responsibility for them (Ladner, 1971; Stack, 1974:117~. Some once popular explanations of black-white differences in family struc- ture are of little contemporary relevance. Both ADican cultural heritage and slavery are far removed from the recent changes. Although research on the causes of changes in family structure is still limited and many crucial data have not been collected, other factors emerge from our review as being of greater potential importance for understanding recent developments. The most powerful hypothesis is that the economic situation in the black community together with residential segregation not only affect the imme- diate living conditions of blacks, but also strongly influence family structures and thereby alter the social and economic prospects for the next generation. The influence of family assistance benefits seems to have been seriously 545

A COMMON DESTINY: BLACKS AND AMERICAN SOCIETY overstated in popular accounts. In contrast, the role of other factors such as male joblessness appears to be quite large. Black women face a more limited array of choices in the marriage market than do white women-a factor that may help account for black-white differences in the timing of marriage and the frequency of marital dissolu- tions. Yet the increasing ratio for both races of men to women since 1970 is inconsistent with the observed pattern of declining probabilities of marriage. It is difficult to determine the attributes of potential spouses for an appro- priate model of marriage pools, but both marriage rates and marital stability may be lowered by the low availability of young black males of "appropri- ate" age, education, and economic status in specific areas. The growing economic independence of women is a factor to take into account. Black women are closer to economic parity with black men than white women are to white men. This may be one reason for the patterns of change, but there still remain economic incentives for women to marry, due to higher per capita income levels attainable in husband-wife families. An increased likeli- hood of dependable family support from a prospective husband might well, over time, help to reduce the incidence of unmarried mothers and female- headed households. After these factors have been appraised, much remains to be explained, and the need for more comprehensive and rigorous research is evident. At the same time, the cumulative effects of the conditions we have reviewed are unquestionably very great. It is precisely the interaction of a complex set of mutually reinforcing factors that has so rapidly altered marriage and family patterns in less than three decades. Our primary interest in studying conditions among families is to consider the welfare of children. That welfare and the lifetime prospects of many children are in jeopardy. High rates of poverty, low educational perfor- mance, and health problems are serious obstacles to the future well-being of millions of children. These problems are much more acute among black children. The disadvantage of black children is partly due to location (region and metropolitan residence) and family size. But when these factors are controlled in a multivariate analysis, the disadvantage of black children rela- tive to that of white children is due almost entirely to the low income of black family heads (Kraly and Hirschman, 1987:19~. Approximately one-half of black children have the additional burden of living in mother-only families. Many begin life with an undereducated teen- age mother, which increases the likelihood that they ~11 live in poverty and raises additional impediments to their life prospects. The employment and earnings and conditions of education, health, and high rates of black involve- ment in criminal activity reviewed in this report make it apparent that these conditions are closely interrelated. Indeed, the current status of black Arner- icans in each of these areas is a crucial factor in one or more of the plausible explanations for changes in family structure and children's living arrange- ments detailed in this chapter. Further evidence of these interconnections is given by recent research into 546

CHILDREN AND FAMILIES the motivations leading to teenage pregnancy. A teenage girl's aspirations and perceived opportunities-in terms of her perception of what she would stand to lose if she became a parent-strongly affect her views of unmarried motherhood, especially among blacks (Abrahamse et al., 1988; Hogan and Kitagawa, 1985; see also Clark, 1965~. If her aspirations are high and per- ceived opportunities are wide, she is strongly inhibited against early preg- nancy. The policy implications are clear: black youth must be given oppor- tunities in education and employment that are unquestionably superior to alternatives, and they must be made unambiguously aware that such oppor- tunities exist and are attainable. Conditions in the schools will be an impor- tant factor in the dete~ination of such opportunities, as will the state of the labor market. A number of major reports have decried the condition of education in the United States and called for sweeping reforms. The opening paragraph of one recent effort indicates the tone of urgency and near crisis these reports have set (Goodlad, 1984:1~: American schools are in trouble. In fact, the problems of schooling are of such crippling proportions that many schools may not survive. It is possible that our entire public education system is nearing collapse. We will con- tinue to have schools, no doubt, but the basis of their support and their relationships to families, communities, and state could be quite different from what we have known. Increasing standards of perfo~ance, the introduction of minimum com- petency tests, more rigorous testing of teachers, and increasing parental choice in the schools their children will attend are among the proposed policy changes (see Chapter 7~. Many of these changes, already under way in a number of states, may differentially affect black Americans as students and as teachers. Blacks are a growing proportion of the school-age popula- tion. It is predicted that by the year 2000, 35 percent of the nation's population under the age of 15 will comprise minorities; a substantial por- tion of those in this age range will be blacks. Yet the special needs of black children large proportions of whom arguably receive the worst quality ed- ucations in the nation, in both urban and rural settings have been largely neglected by this reform movement. Calls for reform have frequently been for higher standards, rather than for higher standards with increased compen- satory education programs for disadvantaged students. Black representation in the overall U.S. population is also grooving; see Table 104. The Bureau of the Census predicts that the black proportion will rise from about one in eight in the 1980s to one in six by the middle of the next century, a change that will occur most rapidly at the younger ages. The decline in fertility following the baby boom cohorts reveals itself in the falling ratio of children to adults in the population. In 1960 there was a very high ratio of children to adults. In the future, there will be a higher ratio of elderly to adults; see Table 10-5. The large numbers of young people entering the labor force during the 1960s and 1970s (the baby-boom cohorts) put considerable pressure on the 547

A COMMON DESTINY: BLACKS AND AMERICAN SOCIETY TABLE 10~ Blacks as a Percentage of Total U.S. Population, by Age Group, 1940-2020 Year All Under 15 25-54 65 and Over 1940 9.7 11.5 9.4 6.8 1960 10.5 12.7 8.7 7.0 1980 11.7 14.8 10.7 8.2 2000 13.3 17.0 13.0 8.5 2020 14.9 18.4 15.3 9.9 Sours: Data Tom decennial censuses (for 1940-1980) and Tom Census Bureau projections (for 2000 and 2020~. TABLE 10-5 Persons Aged 0-14 or 65 and Over per 100 Persons Aged 25-54 Blacks Whites Aged Aged Aged Aged Aged Aged Year 0-14 25-54 65 and Over 0-14 25-54 65 and Over 1940 75 100 12 58 100 17 1960 108 100 18 80 100 25 1980 83 100 23 56 100 32 2000 62 100 20 45 100 32 2020 58 100 29 47 100 49 Sources: Data Tom decennial censuses (for 1940-1980) and Tom Census Bureau projections (for 2000 and 2020). nation's labor market. Other demographic changes, increased immigration and the entry of considerable numbers of women into the labor force, greatly increased the competition for jobs. The 1970s, even without structural shifts . . . . . . . . . . in 1nc sultry ant . greater 1nternatlona . competition against American JUS1- nesses, might have still been a period of difficult labor market adjustment, particularly for less educated black women and men with little work experi- ence. In the late 1980s, the baby-boom cohorts of labor market entrants have subsided and much of the huge increase in labor supply has been absorbed. This suggests that a much tighter job market can be expected in the near future. If so, more employers will have incentives to train and retrain workers. Such an environment will provide great opportunities for public policy to complement and stimulate employers' policies. Many such public policies, in the areas of compensatory education and aid to college students, health care, and employment programs, have been shown to improve the position of blacks. The opportunity for launching a con- certed nationwide effort to ameliorate the problems of poverty and under- achievement may be greater now than they have been in a long time. 548

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A COMMON DESTINY: BLACKS AND AMERICAN SOCIETY Moore, Kristin, and Martha R. Burt 1982 Ovate Cnsis, Public Cost: Policy Perspectives on Teenage Chit~earin,g. Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute. Morgan, James N., Greg J. Duncan, and staff 1968- Fire Thousand Ammcan Families-Patterns of Economic l~o,g~ess: Analyses and Special 1980 Studies of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Vols. 1-10. Ann Arbor: Institute of Social Research, University of Michigan. Murray, Charles 1984 Losing Ground: American Social Policy: 1950-1980. New York: Basic Books. National Center for Health Statistics 1978 Vital Statics of the United States, 1978. Vol. 1: Natality. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 1983 Monthly Vital Statics Reports, Vol. 32, no. 9, supplement. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Depa~llent of Health and Human Services O'Neill, J., D. Wolf, L. Bassi, and M. Hannan 1984 An Analysis of Time on Welfare. Report prepared for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Urban Institute, Washington, D.C. Passel, Jeffery, and J. Gregory RDbinson 1984 Revised estimates of the coverage of the population in the 1980 census, based on demographic analysis: a report on work in progress. Pp. 160-165 in 1984 Proceed' inns of the Social Statistics Section. Washington, D.C.: American Statistical Associa- tion. Patterson, lames T. 1981 Am~nca'sStn~leA~ainstPo~, 1900-1980. Cambridge, Mass.: HarvardUniver- sity Press. Plateris, Alexander A. 1978 Dams and Divorce Rates: United States. U.S. National Center for Health Statistics. Data from the National Vital Statistics System, Series 21, No. 29 (March). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Pleck, Elizabeth Hafkin 1979 Divorces and Divorce Rates: United States. U.S. National Center for Health Statistics. Data from the National Vital Statistics System, Series 21, No. 29 (March). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Powell-Griner, Eve 1986 Induced terminations of pregnancy: reporting states, 1982 and 1983. U.S. Na- tional Center for Health Statistics. Monthly Vital States R - t 35~3~(July). Preston, Samuel H., and James McDonald 1979 The incidence of divorce within cohorts of American marriage contracted since the Civil War. Demography 16~1~[February]:1-25. Rainwater, Lee 1970 Behind Ghetto Walls: Black Life in a Federal Slum. Chicago: Aldine. Reskin, Barbara F., and Heidi I. Hartmann, eds. 1986 Wom~n's Work, Men* Work. Committee on Women's Employment and Related Social Issues. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. Robinson, Brian E 1987 Teenage Fathers. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books/D. C. Heath and Company. RDdman, Hyman 1963 The lower class value stretch. Social Aces 42~2~(December):205-215. Rosenberg, Morris, and Roberta Simmons 1971 Black and White Self-Esteem: The Urban School ChiLls. Washington, D.C.: Ameri- can Sociological Association. 554

CHILDREN AND FAMILIES ROSS, H. L., and I. Sawhill 1975 Time of Transition: The Growth of Families Headed toy Borneo. Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute. Scanzoni, John H. 1971 The Blorck Family in Modern Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Schiller, Bradley R. 1984 The Economics of Poverty and Discrimination. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-HaD. Scott-Jones, Diane 1987 Black Families and the Education of Black Children: Current Issues. Paper com- missioned by the Committee on the Status of Black Americans, National Research Council, Washington, D.C. Siegel, Jacob S. 1974 Estimates of coverage of the population by sex, race, and age in 1970 census. Demography 11~1) [February]: 1-23 . Simpson, George E., and J. Milton Yinger 1985 Racial and Cultural Minorities. 5th ed. New York: Plenum. Smeeding, M. David, and T. Smeeding 1985 Horizontal Equity, Uncertainty and Wellbeing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Spanier, Graham B., and Paul C. Glick 1986 Mate selection differentials between whites and blacks in the United States. Social Forces 58~3~[March]:707-725. Stack, Carol 1974 All Our Kin: S~ate~es for Surreal in a Black Community. New York: Harper & Row. Steinberg, Stephen 1981 The Ethnic Myth: Race, Ethnicity, and Class in Amenca. New York: Atheneum Publishers. Sudarkasa, Niara 1981 Interpreting the African heritage in Afro-American family organization. In Har- riette Pipes McAdoo, ea., Black Families. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications Inc. Sweet, James A., and Larry L. Bumpass 1974 Differentials in marital instability of the black population: 1970. Physic 35 (3~:323- 331. Thornton, Arland 1978 Marital instability differentials and interaction insights from multivariate contin- gency table analysis. Sociology and Social Research 62July):572-595. Udry, J. Richard, and John O. G. Billy 1987 Initiation of coitus in early adolescence. American Sociological Red 52 (6) [December] 841 -855. U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Ways and Means 1987 Background Matenal on Prims Within the Jurisdicuon of the Committee on Ways and Means. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. Walker, Henry A. 1986 Racial differences in patterns of marriage and family maintenance: 1890-1980. In Sanford M. Dornbusch and Myra H. Strober, eds., Leninism, Children and the New Families. New York: Guilford Press. Westoff, Charles F. 1978 Mamage and fertility in developed countries. Scienu~c American 239~6) (December) :51-57. 555

A COMMON DESTINY: BLACKS AND AMERICAN SOCIETY Westoff, Charles F., Gerard Calot, and Andrew D. Foster 1983 Teenage fertility in developed nations: 1971-1980. Family Planning P~rspeci~s 15~3~:105. Williams, Robin M., Jr. 1970 American Society. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Willie, Charles V. 1970 The Family Life of Black People. Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill. Wilson, William Julius 1978 The Declining Significance of Ace: Blacks and Changing American Institutions. Chi- cago: University of Chicago Press. 1987 The Truly Di~nta~ed: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Wilson, William Julius, and Robert Aponte 1985 Urban poverty. Pp. 231-258 in Ralph H. Turner and James F. Short, Jr., eds., Annual Renew of Sociology, Vol. 11. Palo Alto, Calif.: Annual Reviews. Wilson, William Julius, and Kathryn M. Neckerman 1986 Poverty and family structure: the widening gap between evidence and public policy issues. Pp. 232-259 in Sheldon H. Danziger and Daniel H. Weinberg, eds., F~hun,gP~: What Works and What Doesn't. Cambndge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Wright, Paul, and Peter Pirie 1984 A False Feruli~ Transition: The Case of Amencotn Blacks. Papers of the East-West Population Institute, No. 90. Honolulu: East-West Population Institute. 556 ,, ,

APPEN DICES 557

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"[A] collection of scholars [has] released a monumental study called A Common Destiny: Blacks and American Society. It offers detailed evidence of the progress our nation has made in the past 50 years in living up to American ideals. But the study makes clear that our work is far from over." —President Bush, Remarks by the president to the National Urban League Conference

The product of a four-year, intensive study by distinguished experts, A Common Destiny presents a clear, readable "big picture" of blacks' position in America. Drawing on historical perspectives and a vast amount of data, the book examines the past 50 years of change and continuity in the status of black Americans. By studying and comparing black and white age cohorts, this volume charts the status of blacks in areas such as education, housing, employment, political participation and family life.

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