BACKGROUND
Wilson (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.

METHODS
My 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.

RESULTS
The analysis shows that in the mid- to late 20th century, race differences in economic composition were sufficiently large to account for most race differences in first marriage rates, but the size of the economic component declined dramatically over time.

CONCLUSIONS
With the decline of male-breadwinner families since the late 20th century, the role of male economic circumstances for race differences in marriage rates has diminished, but it remains substantial.



中文翻译：

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种族、阶级和婚姻：美国男性初婚率的种族差异组成部分，1960-2019 年（作者：Steven Ruggles）

 背景

Wilson (1987) 认为，从 20 世纪 60 年代到 1980 年代，婚姻频率的种族差异是由于黑人社区适婚男性的短缺造成的。大量文献使用男性适婚性的空间定义指标来预测女性的结婚率。这些研究得出的结论是，适婚男性的存在只能解释婚姻中种族差异的一小部分。我认为这一发现可能反映了对可结婚配偶的衡量存在错误。

 方法

我的分析从男性而不是女性的角度评估结婚率，从而可以直接评估男性的经济地位，而无需诉诸模糊的空间指标。我为 1960-1980 年人口普查制定了新的初婚率衡量标准，并将其与 2008-2019 年基于调查的衡量标准相结合。我使用经典的分解方法来评估 1960 年至 2019 年期间经济构成与男性初婚率种族差异之间关系的变化。

 结果

分析显示，在20世纪中后期，经济构成的种族差异足以解释初婚率的大部分种族差异，但随着时间的推移，经济构成的规模急剧下降。

 结论

自20世纪末以来，随着男性养家糊口家庭的衰落，男性经济环境对结婚率种族差异的影响已经减弱，但仍然很大。