Citation
Dickson, Lynda & Marsh, Kris (2008). The Love Jones Cohort: A New Face of the Black Middle Class. Black Women, Gender, and Families, 2(1), 84-105.Abstract
Contemporary media portrayals suggest that the black middle class has come to have a new face: that of young (25–44 years old), educated black professionals who are single, never married, and childless (The Love Jones Cohort). Is this portrayal a reflection or distortion of reality? Drawing from recent U.S. Census and CPS Reports, we conduct a descriptive cross-sectional analysis of the marital status, educational attainment, earnings, and (for the women) rate of childlessness for black 25–44-year-olds, and, for comparison purposes, all races of 25–44-year-olds. We wished to determine how representative this cohort is of all 25–44-year-old blacks in general and the black middle class in particular. We find that, while it is a small share of all black 25–44-year-olds, the Love Jones Cohort represents a noticeable share of middle-class blacks in this age category. There is also evidence of a more equal sex ratio among the Love Jones Cohort than among other educational and income categories of African Americans. Implications for future research are discussed.URL
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/blacwomegendfami.2.1.0084Reference Type
Journal ArticleYear Published
2008Journal Title
Black Women, Gender, and FamiliesAuthor(s)
Dickson, LyndaMarsh, Kris