Race, class, and marriage: Components of race differences in men's first marriage rates, United States, 1960-2019.

backgroundWilson (1987) argued that race differences in the frequency of marriage from the 1960s to the 1980s resulted from a shortage of marriageable men in the Black community. A large literature used spatially defined measures of male marriageability to predict marriage rates of women. These studies concluded that the availability of marriageable men can explain only a fraction of race differences in marriage. I argue that this finding may reflect errors in the measurement of the availability of marriageable spouses.

methodsMy analysis assesses marriage rates from the perspective of men instead of women, allowing direct assessment of men's economic positions without resorting to fuzzy spatial indicators. I develop new measures of first marriage rates for the 1960-1980 censuses and combine them with survey-based measures for 2008-2019. I use classic decomposition methods to assess the changing relationship of economic composition to race differences in male first marriage rates over the 1960-2019 period.

resultsThe analysis shows that in the mid- to late 20

conclusionsWith the decline of male-breadwinner families since the late 20 CONTRIBUTION: Leveraging a new research strategy and a new measure of first marriage, this analysis provides a consistent decomposition of race differences in first marriage rates over six decades.