As in the past, black men are more likely to marry white women than the reverse, the study finds. But the proportion of black women marrying white men has risen sharply, from.7 percent in 1970 to 3.9 percent of married couples involving at least one black. One reason for the overall increase, the authors suggest, is the rise of a black middle class, making both AfricanAmerican men and women more attractive to middleclass whites. Black women still face obstacles to marriage of any kind: they are more than twice as likely as white women to have children born out of wedlock.
