What's Love Got to Do with It? Economic Viability and the Likelihood of Marriage among African American Men

African American family formation has long been a subject of scholarly as well as lay concern. From the research of W.E.B. Du Bois and Oliver Cox to popular articles in Essence magazine, the African American family has been a focal point of national concern and debate (Du Bois,1967; Cox, 1940; Gite,1987; Nelson, 1987; Strickland, 1989). Much of the focus has to do with the centrality assigned marriage and family as fundamental social institutions. Marriage is a marker for adulthood with all of its concomitant responsibilities (Demos,1986). Marriage traditionally symbolizes the onset of childrearing and it is within the family that social values and norms are passed to the youngest members of our society (Billingsley, 1968, 1992). In recent decades, there have been significant changes in the marital behavior of African Americans. The proportion of African American men between the ages of 15 and 44 who had ever been married dropped from 64.5 percent in 1940 to 56.6 percent in 1990. Among young people, these declines are even more dramatic: the numbers of African American men married by ages 20 to 24 declined from 38.7 percent in 1940 to 11.6 percent in 1990.' These declines in the prevalence of marriage among African American men indicate profound changes in the typical life course experience of young men (Wilson,1987; Cherlin, 1988; Sidel, 1992). Very few contemporary studies focus on male marriage patterns (Mare and Winship, 1991). In recent years there has been an overwhelming focus on female marriage patterns and correlates. Theoretical explanations focusing on the implications of female economic independence for change in family, along with the empirical focus on women, have been to the exclusion and expense of potential alternative explanations that assess how economic changes among men effect marriage (Oppenheimer,1994). There are several structural explanations for changes in marriage trends during the last several decades. These explanations range from focus on economic factors to emphasis on the centrality of demographic forces, to those that incorporate both perspectives. Economic explanations generally seek to explain variation in marriage by connecting such changes to economic changes in society. According to economic perspectives, changes in the economy affect motivations and/or the ability to marry, form and maintain traditional family organization. For the most part, changes in marriage have been linked either to changes in male economic opportunity or to female economic independence. Demographic explanations, on the other hand, relate changes in marital patterns to changes in sex ratios resulting from differential mortality, changes in cohort size, and the disproportionate imprisonment of Black males. Imbalanced sex ratios are seen as creating a "shortage" of available men in the marriage market (Guttentag and Secord, 1983; Schoen, 1983; Tucker and Mitchell-Kernan, 1987). When there are fewer available men relative to women in a given society, the marital prospects of females in that society are severely curtailed. This study focuses on African American men and examines key periods from 1970 to 1990, using United States Census decennial data. The question explored is whether factors explaining change in African American marriage patterns are constant across time or whether their relative salience changes within this historical context. I examine the explanatory power of various theories of change in African American family formation using a multilevel analytical strategy to link macro-level indicators with individual level characteristics and marital outcomes. Competing explanations of marriage are examined in terms of the comparative impact of Black male economic opportunities, female economic opportunities, sex ratio imbalances, and Male Marriageable Pool Index. CONCEPTUAL PERSPECTIVES Male Income Viability Explanations of family change which focus on declining male economic viability generally argue that historically young males' economic fortunes have driven marital outcomes (Oppenheimer, 1988; Easterlin, 1978). …