Black families headed by married parents on the rise, Census finds

Jet, May 12, 2003

More Black families are headed by married couples, the Census Bureau recently reported.

The bureau's most detailed report on the nation's 8.8 million Black families since the 2000 census showed 47.9 percent of Black families were headed by married couples in 2002--up from 47.8 percent in 2000 and 46.1 percent in 1996, the earliest year for which figures are available.

Though the rate increased only 1.8 percentage points, the six-year increase actually equals about 520,000 families!

Additionally, the portion of Black families headed by single women continued to decline. It was 43 percent in 2002--1 percentage point lower than 2000 and 4 points lower than in 1996. Among White families, only 13 percent were headed by single women last year.

The changes have followed the welfare overhaul of 1996, which allowed states to impose stricter rules and helped reduce public assistance rolls.

However, Avis Jones-DeWeever of the Institute for Women's Policy Research said the surging economy of the late 1990s probably had more to do with the gains for Black families than did welfare reform.

"We all know during this time period that we had a huge economic boom, and people do better and have a better quality of life and are more likely to move to these life-changing life issues like marriage," Jones-DeWeever said.

The report also showed that Blacks made gains in home ownership. About 48 percent of Blacks owned homes in 2002, up from 47 percent in 2000 and 42 percent in 1990. The increase came despite a recent drop in Blacks' income. The Census Bureau reported last year that the median income among Blacks was more than $29,000 in 2001, down from nearly $31,000 in 2000.

"It is reflecting the consolidation of a stable kind of Black middle class, which has grown because of the economy of the 1990s," said Roderick Harrison of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, which studies issues of concern to minorities.

"It's not like there are no poor married couples who are struggling," Harrison said, "but it's pretty much that the chance of avoiding poverty and owning a home on the other end are considerably improved if you are married."

Nationally, 76 percent of all families were headed by a married couple last year, down from 77 percent six years earlier, while the percentage of families led by women stayed unchanged at 18 percent. About two-thirds of all families owned homes in 2002.