Professor Rick Banks’ newest book “Is Marriage for White People? How the African American Marriage Decline Affects Everyone” is reviewed below by June Carboni and Naomi Cahn on the Concurring Opinions blog.

A half century ago, high rates of marriage were close to universal. The one notable exception – and the subject of alarm in a much vilified report by Daniel Patrick Moynihan in 1965 – involved lower class African-Americans, whose divorce rates were high and non-marital birth rates were rising. Today, marriage has emerged as a marker of class for the country as a whole. For the first time ever, fewer than half of all households consist of married couples. Moreover, just like access to health care, stable employment, and higher education, access to marriage has become a class-based affair. According to the National Marriage Project, the likelihood of marrying, staying married and raising children within marriage correlates strongly with education. Compared to twenty years ago, the likelihood that a fourteen-year old girl will be in a family with both parents has risen for the children of college graduates and fallen substantially for everyone else. In the midst of cries of alarms about family decay, marital stability has increased for college graduates with declining divorce rates and non-marital birth rates that have stayed below ten percent. As in 1965, however, the notable exception to the rosy picture for family stability, at least for the elite, comes from African-Americans. While the white non-marital birth rate for college graduates has stayed at 2%; for African-American college graduates, the numbers are rising and now approach the 25% level that caused such alarm at the time of the Moynihan report. National Marriage Project, fig. S.2, p. 56.

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The most intriguing issue underlying Banks’ book, however, may be its implications for the country as a whole. Is the experience of the African-American middle class, like the experience of poorer African-Americans a generation earlier, likely to be a bellwether for the country as a whole? If so, is marriage a viable institution for anyone?

Banks details the gender imbalance in the black community that underlies the marriage market. Women’s accomplishments exceed the men’s at every level. In college, there are three women for every two men (p. 38). On the stage at graduation, the gap grows, with twice as many African-American women earning bachelor’s degrees as do the men. …

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Banks’ solution – encourage successful African-women to marry outside the race – may succeed in increasing the women’s marriage prospects. And if it does, it may prompt better behavior from African-American men. …

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