As anyone here knows, I'm a bit of a booster for black fatherhood, and glad to see things like this happening in Congress. But it's worth noting that illegitamcy figures which are often bandied about when we talk about the fall of the black family don't take a major factor into account--the fact that the birth rate among married black families is actually lower than the birth rate among married white families:
It is important to
realize that the "percent of births" is not a birth rate. The birth
rate is the number of births for every 1,000 women in a specific
category. The last marital birth rates calculated by the National
Center for Health Statistics were for 2002. In 2002, the black marital
birth rate was 64.9 births for every 1,000 married black women. The
white marital birth rate was 88.2 for every 1,000 married white women.
The black marital birth rate was 23.3 births less than the white rate.
In the past, the black marital birth rate was higher than the white
rate. Because there is such a low number of births among married black
women, the percent of births to unmarried black women is especially
high.
This isn't exactly news. Almost ten years ago the Times pointed out that in discussing illegitimacy rates in the black community, critics almost always ignored the fact that the black married middle class was reproducing at historic lows:
Married black women gave birth to 357,262 babies in 1970. But by 1996, the last year for which complete figures were available, that figure had dropped to 179,568, a decline of nearly 50 percent, nearly twice the drop in the birth rate among married white women....
....statisticians and demographers point out that the startlingly high percentage of black children born outside of marriage is not merely the result of more single black women giving birth. The percentage of single black women giving birth has been declining since 1989, and reached a 40-year low in 1996. Instead, the high proportion of black babies being born out of wedlock is now mainly a function of its statistical comparison to the steep drop in the number of black children being born to married black women.
On some level, this makes a lot of intuitive sense to me. I'm effectively--if not legally--married. Been with the mother of my eight year old son for ten years now. More on this later. (I promise!) But basically when he was born I felt that he was the bond between us. In other words, he literally was the marriage ring. We'd both love to have more kids, but we simply can't afford it. Furthermore, we don't have particularly wealthy parents to fall back on. I think that's the situation a lot of married black folks find themselves in. They simply feel that they can't have more kids.
Even if married black parents had kids at the rate that white married parents did (or better yet, Hispanic parents), black babies would still make up a disproportionate share of kids borne out of wedlock. But I don't find that too alarming. I'd expect that over the next few decades for that gap to continue to narrow, and ultimately close. In these debates, it's worth remembering that black people have only been full citizens for forty years or so, and that followed two centuries chattel slavery, land theft and racial terrorism. Things will get better. Just gotta give it time.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
I really hate the term illegitimate.
So do I. I don't like "out of wedlock" either. And this is coming from someone who is "illegitimate."
What also gets left out of the discussion is how Black poverty has decreased even as the out-of-wedlock births have risen sharply.
This Brookings piece (An Analysis of Out-Of-Wedlock Births in the United States) also details subject matter that gets ignored in this demonization by decontextualized correlation.
http://www.brookings.edu/papers/1996/08childrenfamilies_akerlof.aspx
Umm...the birth rate among married (and presumably much more upwardly mobile) middle class black women goes off a cliff and we're not worried about what that means for all concerned?
This was not a very comforting post, my friend.
Also, the fact that a child is born out of wedlock says nothing about whether there is an adult male/father figure in their life.
We could have an honest and frank discussion if people would just be honest and find another way of gauge whether father's are present and active in their children's lives.
Arclight, the implications of the birth rate of middle class black women was not the point.
The point was what is behind the high out of wedlock birth (oowb) numbers and how people people complaining about out of wedlock births don't account for how the comparisons they make to what the rate/percentage of oowb 30 or 40 years ago are faulty because different and higher birth rate of middle class Black women.
Yeah, lemme double down on that. I don't think anyone here is unconcerned about the fact that those amongst us who seem most able to parent, are doing it the least (crudely put, I know). This is really just a good starting point, so that we're talking about birth-rates among black folks in the right context.
Just a guess, but the rural/urban difference in family size and the greater porportion of AAs living in urban areas might explain the difference. The comparison I would like to see would be white rural married women vs white urban married woman, and black rural married woman vs black urban married women, then Should be able to create a regression that shows this, it might not amount to a hill of beans but my guess it explains the entire difference. For people living in the city having children is more expensive, since more black folks live in the city thus one would expect the stats to skew lower. Hope this makes sense
I get that you are trying to provide some explanation for this particular statistic, but it's still an ominous one. Explaining how that number is generated is fine, but the consequences of the behavior illuminated by this statistic is the salient point, I feel.
And for what it's worth, I'm equally bothered by the rise of oowb in whites and latinos, and I don't care whether it's for similar reasons or not - it points to a major national problem.
Does anyone else cringe when they read things like "having the courage to raise a child"? Hard work doesn't require courage, does it? It might take courage to be some sort of Super Dad, but scraping a D+ out of the fathering barrel just isn't a matter of courage. And scraping a D+ is really all were talking about when it comes to government intervention and incentives.
10 years. hmmmm. not a long time. Good Luck!
The (dis)advantage of marriage is that it begins with a formal and public promise to stay together for the joint lives of the parties. I think that exerts its own pressure to stay together, accepting of course that that magic seems to be at low strength these days.
to Dennis Tuchler's point....now at 62 and preparing for marriage (again) i really do look forward to this formal and public promise keeping us together for the rest of my/our lives.
to Ta-nehisi
how could you be "illegitimate" or illegitimate, unless you accept someone else's definition of who you are? i know you have a thing for those grey beards such as myself, but the one lesson we did learn back in the day was to reject the language of oppression. you have demonstrated a proficiency with creating words that speak volumes to others. it is not a matter of liking or not liking a word, the question will remain whose purpose does the word serve. so that there be no confusion and before you require me to zip it, let me add that knowing your dad and your roots, i think you are most legitimate.
"I don't think anyone here is unconcerned about the fact that those amongst us who seem most able to parent, are doing it the least."
That's why adoption is definitely in my future.
This item on the illegitimacy rate is a tangential one. Who cares about the birth rate. Anytime 70% of any group abdicates their familial and societal responsibilities, everyone else must pay--the lastest government bailout of wallstreet is a prime example.
I hope the government stops welfare so we can see just how angry this portion of our community becomes when they realize that they must pay their own way.