Waking life

The dissolution of the black family may do more harm to black mobility than any other single factor. Marriage is declining and out-of-wedlock births are increasing across American society. Black Americans lead the way in both. In 2011 72% of black babies were born to unwed mothers, and just 29% of black adults were married, compared with 60% in 1960. Conservatives tend to blame welfare policies, and liberals the lack of low-skill, living-wage jobs, for the decline of black marriage. Either way it has left black women as principal breadwinners in a large number of homes with children. A National Women’s Law Centre study found that in 2011 black women who worked full-time earned, on average, 64 cents for every dollar a white man earned. But among black married couples with children, women are almost twice as likely to outearn their husbands as to be outearned by them.