Wealth Inequality, Family Stability and Insecure Attachment to Wealth among Black American Men and Women
Marshall, J.
Author correspondence: jamaal.marshall@hvisualizations.com
Cite this article: Marshall, J. (2024). Wealth Inequality, Family Stability and Insecure Attachment to Wealth among Black American Men and Women. Diverse Perspectives on Wellness, 2(2), 1-5.
Abstract
This article takes a theoretical approach to examining the impact that Black America’s lukewarm relationship with the institution of marriage has on wealth insecurity and family instability. Culturally speaking, Black American women value marriage, and yet understanding that Black America’s insecure attachment to wealth was mitigated by feminine dominance, which in turn, reduced the Black American woman’s marital compatibility with both Black men and men from male-dominated cultures helps to explain their historically low marriage rates. Black female breadwinning on the basis of individual fulfillment is viewed through an entirely different lens than Black female breadwinning on the basis of cultural counterparts with limited access to economic opportunity. In a patriarchal society, the latter is a driver of family instability, and in some cases, a catalyst for female breadwinner resentment.
Keywords: Black Americans, wealth inequality, female breadwinner resentment, polyamory, gender identity
Female Breadwinner Resentment
Historically, a less than cohesive foundational identity driven by a faltering Black economy, shifting stereotypes, limited access to opportunities for self-reliance, and the notion that too much individualism might further fracture their sense of solidarity led to downward pressure on individualism in the Black American community (Lee, 1993; Bianchi, 2016). Today, as the Black American community has become more entrenched in its foundational values and customs and has benefitted from the security of increased connectivity, growing individualism has helped to expand the Black identity, clarify areas of social overlap with other communities and create opportunities for greater economic viability.
From 1940 to 1950, the Black/White wage ratio for non-farm workers increased from 0.48 to 0.61 (Maloney, 1994). About a decade later, the U.S. War on Drugs (1971-present) shifted economic norms out of favor of Black American men, while global feminist legal reform during the UN Decade for Women (1976-85) shifted economic norms in favor of Black American women, a phenomenon that positioned Black women as the primary beneficiaries of economic opportunity for Black Americans. In conservative northeast Georgia, a survey of married “Black” men revealed that their average individual income was between $30,000 and $39,999, although their respective average household income was between $50,000 and $59,999 (Hurt, 2014). In the U.S., divorce rates are higher for households in which women outearn their male counterparts; unfortunately, the guilt and resentment that some Black women experienced from outearning their male counterparts, at times, overshadowed their newfound independence and power. Black women occupied enough positions in education, health care and government social services to transition from a supportive source of stability who only disrupted patterns of Black male authority during times of uncertainty into dominant leadership positions who served as a lifeline for Black men. This increase in economic safety also enabled a culture of feminism, made them less likely to participate in benevolent sexism (i.e., subordination in exchange for assurances of greater personal safety and economic security) and incentivized greater female dominance in Black American romantic relationships (Meisenbach, 2010).
Insecure Attachment to Wealth
Among cultures who are negatively impacted by wealth inequality, a higher tendency to glorify wealth positions financial success as a potent indicator of exceptionalism and creates an insecure attachment to wealth that manifests uniquely in high, middle and low-income families. For first generation wealth families who have not yet experienced success as non-linear or a regression in income as a normal phase in their wealth cycle, an onset of panic and worry places the family at risk for impacted decision-making, compounded financial damage and an extension of the downward trend. For low-income families who experience sudden financial loss, there is a relatively higher likelihood of the loss being exacerbated by limited community financial support systems and fewer prospects for recovery.
Given America’s culture of male breadwinner families, Black America’s cultural shift in gender norms, and the fact that Black men’s most reliable connections to the state between 1970 and 2000 were most commonly perceived as welfare and prison, cultural, societal and familial expectations of expressing oneself based on economic position become a narrowing force for the collective Black male identity (Thomas, 1988). The power loss experienced by Black men, along with any resentment of the cultural shift in gender roles incentivized power struggles between the sexes. However, given their relatively limited access to outgroup connections and their dependence on Black women, access to economic prosperity and upward mobility were reduced exponentially for Black men during moments of intra-communal conflict.
The Modern Black American Family Structure
A decline in the imprisonment rate of Black American men since 2001 indicates potential for an improved relationship with the state and its operators, something that has gradually been realized as a viable pathway towards programming additional wealth into the Black male identity and easing the burden on Black American romantic relationships. Although both Black American men and Black American women have become more comfortable with traditional breadwinning roles being inverted, the existence of female breadwinning in America is still perceived as a challenge to the institutional order of gender norms and facilitates fewer supports for family stability (Akanle & Nwaobiala, 2020).
In the 1920’s and 1930’s, Russian women who grew up and worked during the Stalin era were married to the state, subscribed to state ideologies and prescriptions that work life was first and personal life was second, and “The Soviet Constitution of 1936 explicitly accorded equal rights to work and payment for work to men and women” (Khitarishvili, 2019; Ashwin, 2000). However, after World War II and near the end of the Stalin-era, male salaries became either low or unreliable for a considerable proportion of Russian families and the women became breadwinners by default. Socialist norms of gender equality were not extended to high-risk attachments to the state (war enlistment, prison, etc.), which jeopardized men’s positions as pillars or co-pillars of the family, upended the traditional family structure, and perhaps helps explain why post-Soviet female breadwinners became divorced from the state and ideological attachments to state traditions in favor of family stability (Ashwin, 2000).
In 1970, 35.6% of Black men and 27.7% of Black women had never been married. By 2020, these percentages had jumped to 51.4% of Black men and 47.5% of Black women. Non-traditional Black marriages find themselves on the receiving end of less support from the more traditional elements both within and outside the community, with dominance feminists within the community critiquing institutions that are patriarchal, monocultural, heteronormative and mono-normative as facilitators of Black family instability (Dubey, 2022).
Progressive Black Political Ideology
In the highest landmark case upholding statutes against polyamory, (Reynolds v. United States, 1879), the Supreme Court reasoned that polygamous marriages were “almost exclusively a feature of the life of Asiatic and of African people”, a century-old opinion still somewhat supported by modern data which revealed Black Americans as more likely to be polyamorous than monogamous (p = .881) (Balzarini, 2019). “Black American historians explain that historically, legislative barriers and penalties that were raised for Black non-monogamous relationships created vast material disparities in their capacities to build wealth or sustain families” (Clardy, 2024). A higher likelihood of polyamory was also indicated among participants who identified as Multiethnic (p < .01), Native (p < .001) Pacific Islander (p = .143), bisexual (p < .001), Libertarian (p = .016), members of the Green Party (<.001) and families with a household income of less than $20,000 (p < .01) (Balzarini, 2019).
The multiple intersecting radicalized identities of Black American polyamorous women, at least in a political sense, suffer from a degree of radicalization that limits their access to the full benefit of social institutions (Clardy, 2021). Progressive Black political ideologies are rooted in the global feminist legal reform of social institutions during the UN Decade for Women (1976-85). Since the 1970’s, Indian feminists have had transnational success in “shifting the norms governing family life through legislation” by advocating for freedom of choice in marriage and partnerships via legal pluralism (i.e., the co-existence of two or more legal systems) so that claims of additional rights are made and responded to within a range of economic, social, cultural and political contexts (Mandal, 2024; Basu, 2015). New legal norms were negotiated via resistance, and in instances where resistance was powered by the collective community’s perspective and accountability for the proposed ideological shifts, power adapted to include accommodating elements (Basu, 2015).
Identity Politics and The Black Economy
As Black American men and women continue to move towards full behavioral acknowledgement of the value of the energy that they sew into American industry via successful salary negotiations, this trend has increased both the Black economy’s stability and its ability to gradually shift its investments in favor of radicalized Black identities that facilitate both an exponential output of energy and the cyclical return of a large percentage of that energy to the Black economy in the form of increased communal prosperity and foundational security. Identity individualism is a privilege of well-established and well-supported communities. Although power will never be distributed evenly across the Black middle class, supporting radicalized identities within the community who grow, produce, create and invent is an opportunity for continued stabilization.
Some energy will be inevitably invested outside of Black American men and women’s intersectional groups, especially when a return on the investment is likely, and ensuring that Black American delegates who represent the capacity of the Black economy to grow, produce, create and invent are connected to outgroups who are mutually interested in better understanding opportunities for both cultural and economic overlap will help facilitate the return of ideas, innovation and interest to the community rather than the community’s energy being removed solely for the benefit of outgroups.
Regarding those Black Americans who exit the Black economy for opportunities that remove their energy to the extent that they are no longer funneling in ideas, innovation and growth strategies, overlapping political priorities with outgroups still create an opportunity for forging alliances that reduce wealth inequality, and Black and non-Black adults who practice polyamory with plausible deniability while campaigning for family stability and greater cultural shifts towards individualism are perhaps a best case scenario for radicalized identities creating more positive connections to the state without friction from traditional elements. Friction, though, is sometimes necessary to inspire a re-evaluation of how exclusionary cultural dynamics are actually working against the community, and open minds to missed opportunities based on so-called radicalized identities that are actually representative of the majority.
References
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by Health Analytics & Visualizations.
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest or financial incentive. The authors’ relationships with the stakeholders and subject matter did not lead to unreasonable bias or compromise the objectivity of the research.
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