Christina Cross, Assistant Professor, Sociology, Harvard University
Title: Stories Untold: African American Two-Parent Families & The Myth of Racial Equality
Abstract: African Americans have the highest rates of single parenthood in the U.S., and this divergence from the two-parent family is routinely indicted as a fundamental cause of their disadvantaged position in society. One need only take a cursory glance at recent academic studies, news articles, policy briefs, or social media posts to witness the single-parent family being implicated as the source of an array of problems disproportionately affecting African American families. Implicit in this perspective on black disadvantage is the assumption that the resources and positive outcomes that typically accompany living in a two-parent are equally available to all. However, a narrow focus on single parenthood cannot tell us the counterfactual: When African American children grow up in the socially promoted two-parent family, how do they fare? How do their outcomes compare relative to their white peers raised in this same family structure? Put differently, is the two-parent family the Great Equalizer many Americans imagine it to be? If not, why do opportunity gaps between the children of Black and white couples persist? And how should we view the role of family structure in contributing to racial inequality? Drawing on data from three nationally representative surveys, I address these questions and more.
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