Marital status and fertility among blacks

As a follow-up to the recent post on marital status and fertility, I used 2000-2010 GSS data to calculate the mean number of offspring for black women ages 40-59 by marital status. I looked at the low- and high-educated separately.


Mean number of offspring

Women with less than four-year degree (sample size = 440)
Married 2.65
Separated/Divorced 2.55
Never-Married 2.34

Women with four-year degree or more (sample size = 111)
Married 2.00
Separated/Divorced 1.62
Never-Married .71*

*significantly lower than corresponding married or separated/divorced groups


In the earlier post, we saw that white never-married women have fewer kids than married or separated/divorced women whether they are more or less educated. For black women, this is true only for educated women. Among less educated blacks, never getting married is not associated with significantly fewer kids.

If marriage disappears completely among blacks, its population will not drop dramatically as we see with whites; by contrast, only fertility among educated blacks--a comparatively small group--will shrink. Let's look on the bright side: the disappearance of your smart people is better than the disappearance of your race. 

Black rate of hate crimes against Hispanics is higher than for whites

Using FBI statistics, Audacious Epigone shows that blacks are much more likely than whites to commit an anti-gay hate crime. From the same table, I can calculate the difference for hate crimes involving Hispanic victims. The population-adjusted rate is 1.6 times higher for blacks than whites. This is another indication that blacks have a more serious problem with hate violence than whites. (The rate difference might be inflated some since the "white" numbers include Hispanics who are less likely to commit hates crimes against their own. On the other hand, keep in mind that "Hispanics" include many national groups, members of whom might not like each other.)

This FBI webpage lists the percentage of offenders of any type of hate crime by race. The population-adjusted rate for blacks is 1.8 times that of whites for 2010--the latest year available.

Marital status and fertility

In a chapter of the Meaning of Marriage, Roger Scruton claims that the move away from marriage reduces fertility below replacement level. Using GSS data since 2000, I calculated the mean number of offspring for white women ages 40-59 by marital status. If Scruton is right, married women will have the most kids, never-married will have the least, and separated/divorced women should be in the middle. Let's look at less and more educated women separately:


Mean number of offspring

Women with less than four-year degree (sample size = 1,759)
Married 2.23
Separated/Divorced 2.14
Never-Married .46*

Women with four-year degree or more (sample size = 866)
Married 1.88
Separated/Divorced 1.63
Never-Married .15*

*significantly lower than corresponding married or separated/divorced groups


Never-married women have fewer kids than married or separated/divorced women whether they are more or less educated. Educated single women have hardly any children at all. A society made up of these type of women would pretty much disappear in a historically short period of time. Next, I'll look at black women.

Growing support for gun rights

This Pew graph shows recent growth in support for private gun ownership. I suspect this is part of larger trend that favors maximum individual lifestyle freedom. Other examples include more people favoring legalization of marijuana and gay marriage. How nice it would be to see the acid of individualism attack minority race-loyalty.

Gender reversal on career goals

These two Pew graphs show how young women are now more ambitious than men. Sixty-six percent of females ages 18 to 34 say career success is "one of the most important things" or very important" in their lives. The corresponding figure for young men (seen below) is only 59 percent.

I expect this new gap will further weaken the institution of marriage. I'm not sure if the Girl Power crowd is aware of this consequence. Radical feminists, of course, are cheerleading the decline. If a man does not earn more than a woman, he is less attractive as a partner. Most women want a husband, but they are less likely to enter marriage and are quicker to exit it if the man offers fewer positives. Marriage is still comparatively strong among high status people, but economic incentives matter.

I watched Senator Lieberman on Fox News Sunday. Am I off-base here, or is he the reincarnation of Droopy the Dog?

Are women catching up to men at being unfaithful?

According to this Huffington Post columnist, women are smarter than men at infidelity, and they are catching up to men in prevelance.

The GSS asked respondents if they ever strayed. I divided answers into two periods: 1991-1998 and 2000-2010. In the first period, 23.0 perent of men and 13.1 percent of women cheated (sample size = 8,103). The difference is statistically significant.

In the second period, the figures are 23.4 and 14.5 percent (sample size = 9,304). Again, men are significantly more likely to be unfaithful than women, but the latter estimates for both sexes are not significantly higher than their respective numbers from period 1. The GSS does not support the view that women are catching up with men. And I don't have any data concerning the cleverness of female cheating.

Are stay-at-home moms unhappy?

This Time columnist thinks that homemakers are so unhappy (and angry), social change is called for. What does the GSS say about their level of unhappiness?

I included mothers since the 2000 survey to maximize sample size. Respondents were asked how happy they are these days. Answers range from "very happy" (1) to "pretty happy" (2) to "not too happy" (3). I calculated means for mothers of all work statuses. Higher means indicate more sadness (sample size = 5,286).


Mean sadness score

Full-time 1.82
Part-time 1.78
Temporarily not working 1.90
Laid off 2.05*
Retired 1.82
School 1.83
Keeping house 1.83

*significantly sadder than full-timers


According to GSS data, there is no difference in mean level of happiness between mothers working full-time and homemakers.

People prefer male politicians with lower voices

Here's a new study from Evolution and Human Behavior:

It may be adaptive for voters to recognize good leadership qualities among politicians. Men with lower-pitched voices are found to be more dominant and attractive than are men with higher-pitched voices. Candidate attractiveness and vocal quality relate to voting behavior, but no study has tested the influence of voice pitch on voting-related perceptions. We tested whether voice pitch influenced perceptions of politicians and how these perceptions related to voting behavior. In Study 1, we manipulated voice pitch of recordings of US presidents and asked participants to attribute personality traits to the voices and to choose the voice they preferred to vote for. We found that lower-pitched voices were associated with favorable personality traits more often than were higher-pitched voices and that people preferred to vote for politicians with lower-pitched rather than higher-pitched voices. Furthermore, lower voice pitch was more strongly associated with physical prowess than with integrity in a wartime voting scenario. Thus, sensitivity to vocal cues to dominance was heightened during wartime. In Study 2, we found that participants preferred to vote for the candidate with the lower-pitched voice when given the choice between two unfamiliar men's voices speaking a neutral sentence. Taken together, our results suggest that candidates' voice pitch has an important influence on voting behavior and that men with lower-pitched voices may have an advantage in political elections.

I remember being annoyed in 2008 with McCain's Bruce Dern-like voice. Romney and Cain had the best voices during the recent primaries. Romney might have a slight advantage over Obama. Cain and Obama are definitely better singers.

The voting behavior of housewives

How do housewives vote?  According to the GSS, 63 percent voted for Obama (sample size = 131). Among married women (sample size = 73), 49 percent voted for him. One hundred percent of never-married stay-at-home women went for Obama (sample size = 19). Sixty percent of homemakers say they are political moderates. How large is the demographic? They are 16 percent of voting women.

Lesbianism among Jewish women

The question came up over at Steve Sailer's blog if Jewish women are more likely than other women to be lesbian. It wouldn't surprise me since data reported on this blog indicate that lesbians tend to be smarter than average, and they are more likely to come from wealthy homes. According to GSS data, here are the percentages of women by religion who say they are lesbian (sample size = 10,981):


Percent lesbian

Protestant 1.8*
Catholic 1.6*
Jewish 1.4
No religion 4.0

*significantly less than the no religion group


No evidence here for more Jewish lesbians.

From what I hear, straight Jewish women are plenty good at denying men sex.

The link between intelligence and cooperativeness

In a sample of almost 4,500 men, a positive correlation (.23) was observed between general intelligence and the general factor of personality (GFP). GFP captures one's ability to work well with others. According to the authors, general intelligence evolved to generate more resources while GFP evolved to secure a larger share of group resources.

The positive correlation suggests four types of people, two of which are more common and two of which are less uncommon. The more frequent types are smart-cooperative and dull-uncooperative people. Less common are smart-uncooperative and dull-cooperative folks.   

Disliking races might be a personality trait

The GSS asked respondents how warmly they feel about: 1) whites, 2) blacks, 3) Hispanics, and 4) Asians. Answers ranged from very cool to very warm. I correlated answers for whites. The mean correlation is .63. While there is substantial range--from .45 for white-white to .81 for Asian-Hispanic--the main story here is that if a person dislikes one group, he tends to have comparatively cool feelings for all groups, even his own. I found the same basic results when I limited the analysis to the black sample or a sample of those of some other race.

We can construct a typology here for all races. Roughly half feel warmly toward all races. Thirty percent or so are neutral toward everyone. Fifteen percent like their group but dislike everyone else, and five percent can't stand anybody. The consistent attitude for various groups leads me to think one's disposition toward groups is a personality trait. It's probably related to one's attitude toward people in general: trusting and warm versus suspicious and hostile.

Father's social class and homosexuality

Using GSS data, I calculated the mean father's socioeconomic index for women who are straight, bisexual, and lesbian (sample size = 8,551).


Mean Father's Socioeconomic Index

Straight 47.3
Bisexual 50.4
Lesbian 52.7*

*significantly higher than straight women


Compared to straight women, lesbians come from significantly higher status families. And for men (sample size = 7,867):


Mean Father's Socioeconomic Index

Straight 48.2
Bisexual 50.1
Gay 49.3

Gay men do not come from significantly higher status homes than straight men.

I'm not sure how to explain the pattern. Women from higher class homes might be more willing to admit lesbianism or might be more willing to adopt a lesbian orientation. There is evidence that lesbianism is more environmentally influenced than homosexuality. One might suggest that higher status fathers are more masculine (at least in some ways) and more likely to have masculine daughters.

Predictors of anti-Semitism

GSS respondents were asked to give a number between 0 and 100 that describes their feelings toward Jews. They were told that 0 to 50 indicates not being favorable to and not caring for Jews, while 50 to 100 indicates feeling favorable and warm. Among a sample of  4,487, 12.1% gave a number under 50. Multiple regression reveals which factors predict liking Jews:

Standardized OLS Regression Coefficients

Age .098
Sex .069
Race .059
Size of place -.037
South -.021
Education .071
Income .057
Church attendance .144
Political conservatism -.009


All predictors are significantly related to liking Jews with the two exceptions of conservatism and living in the South. Focusing on the negative, here are the characteristics of people more likely to dislike Jews: young, male, non-white, urban, uneducated, poor, and irreligious.  The strongest predictor is religiosity. Age and education are also important. It surprises me that people who are young and urban are more likely to be anti-Semitic.

I didn't include IQ as a predictor since it is collinear with education, but if it takes the place of educational level, it is a comparatively strong predictor of liking Jews (the coefficient is .177).