The past shapes the present when it comes to Southern roots, race, and marriage trends

What’s the issue?

Black and white people with Southern lineages are more likely to marry, compared to people with lineages elsewhere in the United States. Understanding intergenerational and place-based patterns could help address racial inequality.

To address racial inequality today, it is important for policymakers to understand its historical sources. One aspect of racial inequality that is very historically contingent is how people form their families, including whether and when they marry. By investigating historical and social factors that influence marriage, researchers may contribute valuable evidence for social policy.
 

What does the research say?

Professor Deirdre Bloome and coauthor Garrett Pace from the University of Nevada have studied how southern family lineages contribute to marriage trends. They find that Black and white people whose grandparents grew up in the southern United States are more likely to marry than people with geographic lineages elsewhere in the United States. This is true for a number of reasons, including religiosity. More Black people than white people have southern roots. This is because of how slavery and Jim Crow impacted where Black families lived in the past. As a result, more Black people than white people are exposed to the intergenerational marriage pressures that come from southern lineages. However, over the course of the 20th century, millions of Black families moved out of the South to other parts of the country, through what became known as the Great Migration. This migration reduced people's exposure to intergenerational marriage pressures. 

The authors write, “policies can be adopted to help people flourish across family forms. These policies can foster inclusion and citizenship by recognizing the legitimacy of many family forms and by helping people achieve their personal family goals. Policies may be especially effective if they recognize that people’s present actions reflect their family lineages. Our results suggest that even when circumstances change across historical time, the past shapes the present through intergenerational legacies.”