A shortage of marriageable men may be part of the explanation for low marriage rates among better-educated black women, but it’s harder to see how the ratio of men to women can explain low marriage rates among better-educated black men. Some scholars argue that the scarcity of better-off black men relative to black women, which is compounded by black men’s relatively lower levels of education and higher rates of interracial marriage, may increase black men’s bargaining power and make marriage less attractive to them as an option in early adulthood.43 This argument assumes, however, that men would rather have informal relationships with women than marry, despite having access to a larger pool of women eligible for marriage. Because nearly all studies linking the gender ratio to marriage have focused on what predicts marriage among women, we don’t have good evidence on this point. A true test of this argument would analyze men’s marriage.
