Origins of Post-1960 Black Family Structure

Abstract This paper shows how social structure shapes many behaviors of low-income Black peoples’ currently labeled “culture.” It refutes both culture poverty arguments based in welfare dependency and deindustrialization explanations the post-1960 increase single-parent families. Historically, distinct discrimination experiences urban versus rural enclaves structured child socializations family formations, North South. Agrarian socialized conformity to two-parent-families racist labor markets; resistance racially stratified markets preserve self-worth, destabilizing Any census measure pre-1960 averages low mother-only rates among Blacks high Blacks. The 1960-1980 doubling (21% 41%) children one-parent families emerged from urbanization converging toward Blacks’ historically rate. Post-1970 liberalization and/or were exacerbating factors, not causes. Using a head’s urban/rural residence at age sixteen proxy socialization location, logistic regressions on 1960s data confirm hypothesis.