This extensive study confirms what I’ve known through observation but haven’t been able to articulate. Namely that black women actually aren’t hypergamous and don’t branch swing, and that our loyalty comes at a steep price.

From the article:

  • In terms of their individual earnings, black women have similar odds of escaping poverty as white women, though both these groups lag behind the upward mobility of white men.

  • Lower marriage rates aren’t hurting black mobility. Marriage is actually dragging black women down

  • among those who grew up poor, black women are the only group showing a marked difference between the risk of being in the bottom quintile of the individual earnings distribution (for each gender), and the risk of being in the bottom quintile of the family income distribution (for the whole age cohort). Whites do well on both counts; black men do poorly on both counts. Black women do reasonably well on the first and very poorly on the second.

 

Turns out - getting married actually legitimately makes black women more likely to be poor. Before marriage - Black women have about an equal likelihood of escaping poverty as white women. Get

 

This suggests that “Marriage” isn’t the blanket solution to single motherhood and poverty in the Black community. It’s either increasing the income levels of black men Or encouraging black women to be viciously hypergamous.