“The answer is balance. As successful Black women we must learn to prioritize what is important in life, and balance must influence this equation,” she said. “A balanced woman achieves academic and career success, actively displays a commitment to bettering their community, has a social life, and most importantly, at least in my view has developed spiritual maturity.”
The study noted that despite the fact that Black women are more likely than White women to have children, 45 percent of those born between 1955 and 1960 didn’t have children by 45 compared to 35 percent of White women who were born in the same period.
The study, led by Natalie Nitsche, a graduate student in sociology at Yale, used data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey to reveal the marital status of Black women with postgraduate degrees.
For example, for Black women with postgraduate degrees born between 1956 and 1960, the average age they gave birth for the first time was 34, almost in the same range as White women.
However, when White women started reaching their 30s, many of them gave birth more than once while most Black women did not.
Ebony Reed, 31, deputy metro editor at the Detroit News, said there are a number of factors responsible for the shortage of Black men in our communities.
“If Black professional women are only looking in the Black community for a mate there is a limited pool of available men, based on high rates of incarceration, mortality and unemployment of Black men,” Reed said. “There are also lower levels of college degrees among Black men when compared to Black women.”
Reed, an accomplished journalist who received management training at the New York Times and at the Maynard Institute’s Media Academy at Harvard University, said the situation in Detroit is dire.
“For Detroit women between the ages of 30 and 40, there are approximately 30 percent more women than men in the city,” Reed said. “When you look at the Census data for the same age group across Michigan, there is only a 6 percent difference, based on the recent U.S. Census American Community Survey.”
Reed said that means women who live in Detroit face a much smaller pool of available men to start with.
“For example according to the recent Census, more than 50,000 women in Detroit, which is a mostly Black community, have a bachelor degrees or higher compared to only 31,000 of men,” Reed said.
At 26 years, Kelly L. Dickens, a successful producer and reporter for ABC12 WJRT TV in Flint, describes herself as “super single.”
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