Two-Parent Black Families Showing Gains According to Census Bureau

According to the NY Times, the number of black children raised by two parents is edging higher that at any time in a generation-- nearly 40 percent. The demographers have said taht the trend might be partly attributable to the growing numbers of immigrants in the nation’s black population. I would like to think that it is also possibly being driven by the values of an emerging black middle class, a trend that could be jeopardized by the current economic meltdown.

The Census Bureau attributed an indeterminate amount of the increase to revised definitions adopted in 2007, which identify as parents any man and woman living together, whether or not they are married or the child’s biological parents.

According to the bureau’s estimates, the number of black children living with two parents was 59 percent in 1970, falling to 42 percent in 1980, 38 percent in 1990 and 35 percent in 2004. In 2007, the latest year for which data is available, it was 40 percent.

For non-Hispanic whites, the figure in 2007 was 77 percent, down from 90 percent in 1970. While expressing skepticism about an increase so large in such a short time in the number of black children living with two parents, a number of experts said the shift was potentially significant. “It’s a positive change,” said Prof. Robert J. Sampson, the chairman of Harvard’s sociology department. “It’s been hidden.”

The 2007 figure, itself, was more or less hidden among the nearly 1,400 tables in the 2009 Statistical Abstract of the United States, a portrait-by-numbers of the nation released Tuesday by the Census Bureau. Andrew J. Cherlin, a sociology professor at Johns Hopkins University, said that before 2007, a child living with two unmarried parents was usually classified as living with either a mother or a father, depending on who was the head of the household. “The unmarried parent was invisible,” Professor Cherlin said. Given a new category, “living with both parents, not married to each other,” he added, “I think the news is that the Census Bureau estimates that about 3 percent of American children are living with two unmarried parents. Because of the increases in living-together relationships, this is probably a higher figure than a generation ago.”

This is very encouraging news and it bodes well for the future. Too many black kids are growing up in households without a father. Barack Obama said it well during a speech that black fathers who are not an integral part of their children's lives must change that course. For all the single mothers out there, who are doing the right thing by their children, I salute you and I encourgage you to keep on doing the right thing.

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