The Black family in the United States has been the subject of intense scrutiny and debate as public officials, advocates, researchers, and others grapple with the nation’s legacy of enslavement, economic exploitation, terror, and disenfranchisement of Black people. This continued focus on Black families over time reflects the unique importance of families for the well-being of children and society.
The family’s value is connected to its many roles and functions, which include the provision of love, safety, identity development, socialization, economic support, and education. Research on Black families-as with all social science research-mirrors our nation’s beliefs and priorities but is also capable of exerting its own influence on public attitudes and policies. The last 100 years represent a sea change in how Black families live their day-to-day lives; in the policy environments Black families must navigate; and, necessarily, in how researchers study Black families.
A key goal of our review is to inform the development of an applied research agenda focused on Black families with children that is appropriate for the 21st century. This agenda aims to produce evidence for policymakers, practitioners, and the public that can be used to advance Black families’ well-being. Our review also illustrates how such research-and its connection to and implications for public policy-has evolved over time. Our review offers key insights into how research, policy, and practice can promote the well-being of Black families.
Despite the significant contributions of Black scholars to research focused on Black families, social policy and programming have been heavily influenced by the acceptance and promotion of research conducted by White scholars. Families in the United States, however, continue to change in significant ways and much of this change remains invisible in the research focused on Black families. For example, there is limited research on Black families with children who have special needs, on “sandwiched” families (i.e., families that include a middle generation of parents/caregivers who care for both their children and their own parents), and on the role of grandfathers in grandparent-led households of grandchildren.
Over the past 100 years, research on Black families has often explicitly or implicitly included comparisons of Black families against White, middle-class families, with White cultural norms as the standard by which Black families are judged. Since the civil rights era, an increasing number of studies have begun to examine Black families as important social units in their own right.
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To build social systems and policies that are supportive of the heterogeneity of 21st-century Black families, a 21st-century applied research agenda is needed. Black scholars have long been the architects of research on Black families, but policy audiences have often overlooked their work when considering issues of major significance to Black families and their children. Research funders should ensure that Black scholars have the long-term funding necessary to develop, conduct, and disseminate their research, and to build networks to effectively engage advocates, public officials, and practitioners.
In past and current research, Black families have often been the subject of research while having limited say in its focus and execution. As a result, studies have often defaulted to deficit framing of Black families, perpetuating harmful stereotypes and ineffective policies and practices. Collaborative research approaches (e.g., participatory research, action research) offer promising ways to address this challenge by engaging families and communities as partners in the development and dissemination of research.
If family characteristics are invisible in the data, they are likely invisible in policy discourse. Large-scale datasets are an important resource for understanding the status of people living in the United States, as well as shifts over time. Moreover, variables in the Census (and other datasets) often do not include indicators of strengths or assets that are relevant to Black families and their importance in facilitating positive outcomes for adults and children.
Continue to encourage research questions that probe systems, policies, and practices for sources of harm and exclusion for Black families. Cities and states are often incubators for national change, leading the nation in penal reform, family leave, early care and education, guaranteed income programs, and universal health care-policies that have had significant consequences for families generally and for Black families specifically. Studies that examine Black families and communities within and across specific geographic locations and policy contexts can highlight conditions that facilitate or diminish their flourishing.
Historical Context of Black Families in the United States
The Black Americans’ social standing in the United States has been shaped by a long history of racism in laws, policies, and practices that has built racist institutions and created and exacerbated inequality. This inequality is built into the infrastructure of our country and has formed the foundation for structural racism-a system that privileges White people and results in intentional disadvantage for Black Americans.
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Virtually every facet of the lives of Black people in the United States-both adults and children-is shaped by race. Due to the pervasive nature of structural racism in the United States, no Black person in America (regardless of their country of origin or ancestry) is immune from the effects of racism. Culturally, Black Americans have long highly valued romantic partnerships, marriage, and children. However, institutional and structural barriers often prevent them from being able to realize these values, particularly for those who have low incomes.
Black children live in a variety of family structures, including married, cohabiting, coparenting, and single-parenting households. Extended family and kin networks, a source of social support and an enduring legacy of African cultures and heritage, have also played a key role in childrearing within Black communities.
Demographic Trends Across the Decades
The evolution of Black families in the United States can be better understood by examining demographic trends across different decades:
- 1920s: The vast majority (85.2%) of Negroes still lived in the Southeastern states of the continental United States.
- 1930s: Overall employment rates for Negro men and women in the United States were relatively high (59.2%), despite economic hardship.
- 1940s: Almost two thirds (65.6%) of Negro men and just under one third (32.2%) of Negro women were engaged in employment.
- 1950s: The 1950s marked the beginning of a Baby Boom across the country, ending a century of declining fertility rates.
- 1960s: Despite progress in the 1960s, the poverty rate for Black families with children under age 18 was over twice the national average (48.8% versus 18.3%).
- 1980s: In 1980, the poverty rate for Black families with children under age 18 was more than double the national rate, at 42.1 percent.
- 2010s: In 2010, 13.4% of the population identified as Black or African American alone or in combination with one or more other races.
Since '95, marriage has dropped for white, Black, and Hispanic adults, but it's stayed pretty steady for Asians. When you look at cohabiting, though, the numbers are more similar - around 8% for white and Hispanic adults, 7% for Black adults, and just 3% for Asians.
A look at the Black family in the U.S.
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The out of wedlock birth rates by race in the United States from 1940 to 2014. The rate for African Americans is the purple line. Data is from the National Vital Statistics System Reports published by the CDC National Center for Health Statistics.
The Significance of Kinship Bonds
Commitment to the family is the most important factor in the socialization of African American children. The existence of and reliance on the extended family for emotional, social, and financial support have been well documented and, to some extent, reflect the lasting influences of African tribal culture and the experience of slavery on the modern African American family. The familiar saying, “It takes a village to raise a child,” exemplifies this concept of shared family and community responsibility for the well-being of African American children.
Family stability and marriage stability are not perceived to be synonymous, and family ties are maintained even after the dissolution of a marriage. Unfortunately, trends toward a reduction in multigenerational households may signal a decline in the availability of immediate support for single parents.
Respect and appreciation for elders within and outside one’s family are also often important values among African Americans. African American grandparents, especially grandmothers, often play an active role in teaching, disciplining, and otherwise raising grandchildren. This favorable attitude toward the elderly, coupled with their continued involvement in the extended kin network, seems to give African American seniors a higher status in the family, and they report greater happiness compared with their white counterparts.
The Role of the Church
The church has traditionally played a pivotal role in the African American community and in the socialization of children. The black church has served to provide moral training, feelings of self-worth, and role models to black children. In addition, black churches operate a multitude of family-related programs, including schools, recreation groups, and family welfare and adoption services.
Family Structure and Poverty
Although the percentage of children raised in two-parent households has been declining overall, US Census figures indicate that the number of African American children being raised in single-parent households (typically mother-only households) is disproportionately high. These findings are also closely linked to factors such as age and income.
Marriage and Divorce Rates
The rate of African American marriage is consistently lower than White Americans, and is declining. For African Americans who do marry, the rate of divorce is higher than White Americans. The decline and low success rate of black marriages is crucial for study because many African Americans achieve a middle-class status through marriage and the likelihood of children growing up in poverty is tripled for those in single-parent rather than two-parent homes.
Structural barriers are often listed as the reason for the current trends in the African American family structure, specifically the decline in marriage rates. Black male incarceration and higher mortality rates are often pointed to for these imbalanced sex ratios. Although black males make up 6% of the population, they make up 50% of those who are incarcerated.
Cultural Values and Socialization
African American families are far from homogeneous in terms of structure, values emphasized, and the means of socialization. This article, however, will primarily discuss research on the African American nuclear family.
African American families have traditionally advocated a strong commitment to educational achievement and see higher education as the most important avenue to success in the larger American society. There is strong evidence that patterns of authority in two-parent African American households are more frequently egalitarian with flexible rather than traditional family gender roles. First-born and older children, regardless of gender, are expected to help around the house and provide additional care for younger household members.
Individualistic and Collectivistic Values
Studies of cultural values frequently include measures of collectivistic (e.g., familism, respect) and individualistic (e.g., competition, material success) values. In empirical studies of cultural values with African-American adolescent girls, collectivistic values were associated with higher levels of self esteem, perceived social support, and life satisfaction. In a study of the cultural values of African-American upper elementary-age children, students and their parents had significantly stronger preferences for cultural and communal activities at home and at school than for individualistic and competitive activities.
The Moynihan Report and Its Implications
The Moynihan Report, written by Assistant Secretary of Labor, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, initiated the debate on whether the African-American family structure leads to negative outcomes, such as poverty, teenage pregnancy and gaps in education or whether the reverse is true and the African American family structure is a result of institutional discrimination, poverty and other segregation. Regardless of the causality, researchers have found a consistent relationship between the current African American family structure and poverty, education, and pregnancy.
The Current State of Black Families
This brief has provided a demographic overview of Black families with young children in the United States, highlighting three areas of consideration for policymakers focused on family support services: family structure, employment and income, and geography. We understand that no single solution can undo the harm of hundreds of years of racist policies and practices, and that moving forward will require solutions from a wide range of places, organizations, and individuals across generations and with a variety of lived experiences.
Table: Key Demographic Indicators for Black Families
| Indicator | Data |
|---|---|
| Poverty Rate (2019) | 18.8% |
| Poverty Rate for Female-Headed Households | 31.7% |
| Percentage of Children in Single-Parent Families | 64% |
| Black men earned for every dollar earned by White men | 70.2 cents |
| Black women earned for every dollar earned by White men | 61.9 cents |
The Black Americans currently number about 42 million, making up about 13 percent of the total population in the United States.
