James Bossard: Article Analysis

The articles I read cover the effects of race and economic areas on marriage rates and marriage decline. In the first article, Ecological Areas and Marriage Rates, author James Bossard discusses how the economic prosperity of areas in a city has an influence on marriage rates. In his 1928 study, Bossard conducted research on 20,000 married men throughout different parts of Philadelphia, which was the US’s 3rd largest city at the time. Data was collected from the Philadelphia Marriage License Bureau and nearby bureaus. The rates were calculated by the amount of men who were married during the study per 1,000 men who were single, widowed, or divorced in the area. An important factor taken into account was age difference. Findings showed that
82.1 percent of married men were in ages 20 and 34, which could be an important study factor. Methods were used to try to determine if age had any impact, but Bossard was unable to gather enough data on age ranges of males in the area. He states that the lack of data on the relation between age and marriageable males is a big drawback, but from the information gathered, it would seem to have no real significance. Philadelphia was divided into 404 subgroups for testing marriage rates, 10 being excluded due to institutional populations.
The results showed that the central business district of Philadelphia had the lowest rates at only 54.9 percent. South Philadelphia had the highest, with 73.2 percent of marriage. The second highest was in Northwest Philadelphia with 71.1 percent. The third highest was the central north with 68.1 percent, and the fourth highest was Southwest Philadelphia with 61.4 percent. It’s important to note that at this time, Philadelphia’s population was declining in the center, and studies were also conducted to test how marriage rates varied in areas of declining or increasing populations. Rates were shown to be higher in areas of declining population than those with growing populations. Marriage rates from 1920 to 1930 in declining areas were 74.5 percent while growing areas were at 65.1 percent. Also, areas with high marriage rates tended to be in central city areas, and old sections. Low areas with less than 50 percent marriage rates tended to be middle or low class areas, with choice residential sections, and a distinct downtown transition zone. In order to be less “vague” ~~(78) ~~ mention the racial category of the married
couples. ~~ “Marriage rates, in other words, are a product of total social situations rather than one or several sets of statistical data” (Bossard 79). (~~) tracts were used to study the relationship of (marriage) rates with racial grouping in mind, tracts 30A, 26A, and 36A, with the highest rates of the study. Tract 30A, with the highest population of the 3 tracts was 86.7 black, 26A 50 percent, and 36A was 82 percent black. The “white” population was made up of mostly Italians. In ~~ areas, where most ~~ black population~~, which (constitutes largest) racial group which is ~~, Italians ~~, (others)~~. (household prices 80)
The second article, Marriage Rates and Marriageable Men: A Test of the Wilson Hypothesis focuses on the rapidly declining rates of African American marriage compared to white marriage rates.
Author Robert Wood’s first statistics show that in 1960, 80 percent of black women and 66 percent of black men who were aged 20 to 34 were married at least once. In 1990 the percentages had dropped to 46 and 38 percent respectively. White rates, on the other hand, were 86 for women and 73 for men in 1960, and 68 and 54 in 1990. The result from the drop in black marriage was an increase in births out of wedlock in the black community, at 38 percent in 1970, up to 61 percent in 1988. White levels were 6 percent in 170 and 16 percent in 1988. William Julius Wilson ([proposed] the explanation as a lack of male employment levels among young black men, leading to worse marriage partners. Wood conducted a study to test this theory using standard-metropolitan-statistical-area-level data from U.S censuses in 1970 and
1980.