Census shows despite a decade of economic gains, race and gender gaps persist

Crisis, The, Jul/Aug 2003 by Harrison, Roderick J

The economic expansion of the 1990s, the longest in the nation's history, had particularly noteworthy effects on the African American population. Incomes rose, unemployment dropped dramatically, and poverty was driven to historic lows. But despite these gains, on important measures such as unemployment and college completion, racial gaps persisted or actually grew.

In the period since, the nation has experienced a brief recession and a sustained period of sluggish growth. The soft economic climate has been compounded by the aftershocks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the uncertainties surrounding the war in Iraq. How has this less favorable economic environment affected African Americans? Has it begun to erode or reverse the gains of the 1990s, or have Blacks held their own?

Answers to these and other important questions can be gleaned from a report, "The Black Population in the United States," released by the Census Bureau at the end of April. The report uses data from the March (2002) Annual Demographic Supplement to the Current Population Survey (CPS), a monthly sample of 50,000 households that provides the official estimates of unemployment each month. The March supplement also collects data on other socioeconomic indicators, including education, marital status, family type and composition, occupation and income. This data reveals a variety of trends showing how the Black population has fared during the 1990s and since the 2000 census.

Poverty

The 2002 CPS, which provides data on income and poverty in the 2001 calendar year, shows the median income of Black families rose from $27,311 in 1991 to $34,616 in 2000. It then dropped 2.9 percent to $33,598 in 2001. This decline, and the drops in the median income of non-Hispanic White families (0.8 percent) and all families (1.4 percent) are evidence of the period of recession and slow growth.

With median family incomes declining, it is not surprising that poverty increased. Poverty rates for Black families had fallen to a historic low of 19.3 percent in 2000 from a recent peak of 31.3 percent in 1993. Between 2000 and 2001, however, the poverty rate for Black families rose to 20.7 percent. While poverty rates for Blacks continued to outpace those for all other racial groups, this rise paralleled the approximately 5.6 percent increases in the poverty rates for all families (from 8.7 percent to 9.2 percent) and for non-Hispanic White families (from 5.4 to 5.7 percent).

Poverty rates for all African American families with children grew about 5.1 percent, from 25.3 percent to 26.6 percent, and interestingly, rose a dramatic 29.9 percent (from 6.7 percent to 8.7 percent) among married-couple families with children. This evidence clearly demonstrates that the substantial improvements in income and poverty that Black families made during the great economic boom of the 1990s have been significantly compromised by the recession and the current slow recovery.

Education

Blacks also made considerable gains in educational attainment in the 1990s. The percentage of 25- to 29-year-old African Americans who completed four years of high school increased 7.2 percent from 81.7 percent in 1990 to 87.6 percent in 2002, and the percentage who completed four or more years of college rose a striking 34.3 percent from 13.4 percent to 18.0 percent.

Despite those gains, the racial gap in high school and college completion rates actually increased. African Americans 25 to 29 years old were 94.6 percent as likely to complete high school as comparable Whites in 1990; this rate fell slightly to 94.1 percent in 2002. At the college level, African Americans were only half as likely to complete four years of college as Whites in 2002, down from 55.4 percent as likely in 1990. The economic downturn, coupled with rising college costs and the decline in available financial aid may account for some of this trend.

Whatever the reason, the notable improvements in African American college completion rates since 1990 were not sufficient to keep pace with comparable improvements among Whites.

The "Reverse" Gender Gap

Recent reports have cited a growing "reverse" gender gap in which more women are earning bachelor's degrees than men. The CPS data for 25- to 29-year-olds reflects this trend, with 31.8 percent of women completing four or more years of college, compared with 26.9 percent of men. Among these young adults, the gender gap was much smaller for African Americans in 2002, with women (18.1 percent) and men (17.9 percent) earning degrees at comparable rates.

This contributes to a more substantial gender gap among African Americans 25 years and older, where 17.7 percent of women and 16.5 percent of men have completed college.

African Americans have also experienced a "reverse" gender gap in the number of men and women employed in the labor force and in each of the major "white collar" occupational categories. More African American women (7.9 million) than men (6.8 million) were employed in the civilian labor force in 2002.