In short, we can learn much from taking a longer-run view of the black-white marriage gap. We see that the racial gap in marriage formation was minimal through about 1960, both in terms of marriage ages and rates, but that the higher rate of marital instability among black than among white women has deeper historical roots. Divorce rates increased earlier and more steeply among black than among white women. After about 1970, we see marital instability continue to diverge between black and white women, but we also begin to see a new racial gap in the likelihood of ever marrying, driven by a decline in marriage formation among blacks. As we’ll see below, when we explore variation by social class, a similar pattern has appeared more recently among less-educated whites.
