For years, Black women have been bombarded with reports suggesting that their chances of getting married are slim to none, but a closer look at the research suggests Black women needn’t torture themselves with worry.
These days it’s hard to find a Black woman who hasn’t been told that there are few Black men out in the world looking to marry a Black woman.
From academic social studies to popular blog posts, there is an incredible amount of content being produced that boldly claims that few Black women get married.
The problem is that such claims aren’t actually true.
The myth stems from a 2009 study from a pair of Yale researchers that revealed only 42 percent of the Black women involved in their study were married.
Immediately, think pieces surfaced in an attempt to discover why less than half of the Black women looking for love were actually getting married.
Some suggested that Black men are more interested in women of other races while others claimed Black men weren’t suitable for Black women because they often had lower incomes.
These, much like the initial claim that Black women aren’t getting married, are myths.
It turns out that the Yale study included all women older than 18, which dramatically skewed the numbers because most women across all races aren’t getting married that young, especially not Black women.
More accurate research reveals that Black women are getting married, but they simply get married at an older age than other races.
According to a report from the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 70 percent of Black women had never married in 2009.
By the time they were 55, however, most Black women had married.
The U.S. Census Bureau revealed that only 13 percent of Black women had never married by the age of 55.
This, according to women who participated in a study by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, was because Black women were more likely to postpone marriage until they had their own financial situation in order.
“Many African-American women are needed to take care of their own financial circumstances and have to make sure that their educational and financial affairs are putting them in the position to accommodate their own needs,” a Chicago therapist, Cheryl Pugh, told the Chicago Sun-Times about the study’s results.
Overall, statistics show that the percentage of Black women getting married is actually on the rise.
The U.S. Census Bureau is also shutting down rumors that Black men are not marrying Black women.
Nearly 90 percent of Black men had Black wives in 2010, compared to only 9 percent that were married to white women.
These are all numbers that suggest the so-called civil war between Black men and women is more of a false perception created by the media than it is an actual rift in the Black community.
