SOCIAL MOBILITY: Single black female BA seeks educated husband: Race, assortative mating and inequality.

The stubborn race gaps in our society, especially those facing black Americans, are one of the greatest equity challenges of the 21st century. This is not just an issue of inequality at any point in time — it is an intergenerational problem. The United States’ social mobility problem is in large part a reflection of the truncated life chances of black children: not only in terms of lower rates of upward mobility from the bottom rungs of the income ladder, but also the much higher risk of downward mobility from higher up the distribution. Most black children born into families in the middle quintile will fall into one of the two income quintiles below as adults, for example, according to recent work by Scott Winship.

There are a complex set of factors at work here, including school quality, wealth gaps, criminal justice, college access, neighborhood segregation and discrimination. But assortative mating — or lack of it — may play a role too. Marriage rates in the black community are low and falling. Black women are the group who are least likely to “marry out” across race lines. Black men are the second least likely race/gender group to gain a college education, after Hispanic men. The combination of these factors means that black women who get a college education are less likely to find a college-educated husband. It can be seen as good news that they are willing to ”marry down” in terms of education — rather than not marry at all — but, other things being equal, marrying down will make it more difficult for them to achieve and maintain a middle-class standard of living than if they married college-educated partners. It may also make it harder for them to help their children surpass or at least maintain their status on the income ladder.

The interaction between gender, race, education, and marriage helps to explain the replication of social status. Even if black women rise up the ladder, in part because of their efforts to acquire more education, one of the key mechanisms for maintaining that higher status for the next generation — assortative mating — is less available to them.

Interesting that this is presented primarily as a problem for women.