April 18, 2013

New York City's missing black men

One of the more astonishing demographic articles I've ever read was this one by the excellent Jonathan Tilove, who used to be employed to report on race by Newhouse News Service, which went out of business in 2008.
The Gap: In a Single Statistic, the Measure of a Racial Tragedy

By JONATHAN TILOVE 
May 5, 2005 
c.2005 Newhouse News Service 
There are nearly 2 million more black adult women than men in America, stark testimony to how often black men die before their time. 
Worse yet, with nearly another million black men in prison or the military, the reality in most black communities across the country is of an even greater imbalance _ a gap of 2.8 million, or 26 percent, according to Census Bureau figures for 2002. The comparable disparity for whites was 8 percent. 
Perhaps no single statistic so precisely measures the fateful, often fatal price of being a black man in America, or so powerfully conveys how beset black communities are by the violence and disease that leave them bereft of brothers, fathers, husbands and sons. And because the number of black males plummets as they move from their teens to their 20s, the gap first appears with the suddenness of a natural disaster. 
The imbalance between the numbers of black men and women does not exist everywhere. There is no gap to speak of in places with relatively small black populations like Minneapolis, Minn., Portland, Ore., San Francisco and San Diego, and Seattle actually has more black men than women. But it is the rule in those communities with large concentrated black populations that are the hub of African-American life, and it is as good an indicator as any of things gone wrong. 
There are more than 30 percent more black women than men in Baltimore, New Orleans, Chicago and Cleveland, and in smaller cities like Harrisburg, Pa., Syracuse, N.Y., Flint, Mich., and Mobile and Birmingham, Ala. 
There are 36 percent more black women than men in New York City, and 37 percent more in Saginaw, Mich., in Philadelphia, and in East Orange.

Since you never hear about this, I've always wondered if Tilove's results were replicable.

I finally found a government report for New York City in 2000, and, yes, the ratio of black males to females plummets from about age 21 onward. To eliminate the natural effect of women living longer on average, I just looked at ages 20 through 39 in New York City. There were 28% more black women than men in that cohort.

And, it's not much caused by black women moving to New York because they were fans of Sex and the City, either. In Manhattan (which includes Harlem), the gap was smallest, with just 15% more women than men among 20 to 39 year olds. In more middle class Queens, with its large West Indian population, the gap was only 18%. In Staten Island 27%, in the Bronx 32%, and in Brooklyn, which had, by far, New York City's largest black population, the gap was 35%.

Hopefully, the decline in homicides and AIDS deaths means the gap is smaller in the 2010 Census, but I haven't been able to find any numbers for NYC from that Census yet.

22 comments:

  1. What a great situation to be in if you're a non-criminal black guy with a job. I'm jealous.

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  2. No one can make any money or screw anyone politically with that information, so ... zzzzzz.

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  3. I wonder if the familial devastation in the black community isn't going to arrive in the white community very soon. If we accept that hypergamy is governing the dating market, then the surplus of white women among the college dating population is going to lead to a similar explosion of illegitimacy among whites. This is, of course, assuming you accept the economic analysis (Guttentag and Secord) of black illegitimacy rather than a more HBD centered approach based on testosterone levels in the black male population.

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  4. Some of the "missing black men" are dead - because other black men killed them. And the other "missing black men" are in jail - for killing the first group of black men.

    In other words none of them are actually "missing", in the normal sense of the word "missing".

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  5. Funny ... I was in New York city today and spent part of the time near Harlem...the part that is being gentrified.

    It was my first visit to this area in a number of years(I live in Connecticut and seldom travel to the city anymore unlesss I have to).

    Noticed that, all things considered, there seemed to be fewer Black males on the streets...

    I mean it is noticeable... you expect Black males to be on the streets in Harlem....

    It really looks like they are being moved out.

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  6. OT: University of California system admits fewer in-state students than previous year, with large jump in out of state and international students admitted.

    "Systemwide, the UC saw a 2.2 percent decrease in admittance for in-state students compared to 2012 rates. Meanwhile, the university admitted 14.3 percent more out of state students, and 28.5 percent more international students, compared to last year."

    http://www.dailycal.org/2013/04/18/uc-berkeley/

    The tables linked in the article have some interesting stuff, oddly UCLA actually had a 19% drop in international admits. Whereas Santa Cruz had a whopping 155% increase compared to 2012, and accepted 14% less in-state students.

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  7. east european countries also have quite high mortality rates for boys and men while much lower for girls and women.
    their birth ratio is higher than blacks though(105 vs 103)

    http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/country-health-profile/lithuania

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  8. What a great situation to be in if you're a non-criminal black guy with a job. I'm jealous.

    Should provide an incentive to observe the law and have a job so I would imagine that the market will correct.

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  9. I've heard black guys say that the 'revenge of the nerds' effect is extremely pronounced if you're a moderately successful black guy. You pretty much get your pick of the litter of the non-trashy black women (who tend to be the hotter ones, let's be honest) and if you date non-blacks you don't have to settle for trailer trash.

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  10. After analyzing Census 2010 data I discovered that among blacks, single women start outnumbering single men at around 30 years old nationwide. However, among whites, single women don't start outnumbering single men until around 50-55. Single white men in America are in a far more difficult position on the dating market than single black men.

    The black marriage market closely resembles the Eastern European one, where high male mortality also puts the "crossover" point of male-to-female surplus at around 30, astonishingly early by Western European and American standards.

    As previous commenters have noted, it's good to be a black man who has survived the risks and made it to at least 30 years old. That could also explain why the marriage rate is so low in the black population. There's no need to guarantee commitment if there's a lot to choose from.

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  11. According to SATC there a lot of Black she-males in parts of Manhattan. Even worse news for the ladies (but better news for De Niro).

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  12. "east european countries also have quite high mortality rates for boys and men while much lower for girls and women.
    their birth ratio is higher than blacks though(105 vs 103)"

    Now that's news that (most) single iSteve readers can use.

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  13. This could be pathway 2 (besides African immigrants) to legalized polygamy. Big man Afro-American types taking all these surplus black women under their protection, given them hearth and home. Who could argue with that?

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  14. And this helps explain the Angry Black Female stereotype. Combine this demographic gender gap with the black male obsession with White women and big booty latinas and they're simply aren't enough black males to go around for the black females.

    Plus White men other than Robert DeNiro and a few others generally don't want them so what's left.

    A lot of anger and frustration.

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  15. The lack of available black men for black women is also exacerbated by the former's preference for women of other groups. So of those black men who survive, a good deal probably seek spouses outside of their community. And given that men of other racial groups are in no hurry to seek out black women, that leaves black women in a worse position.

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  16. The problem is Black women. Black women prefer on average, and definitely in large populations of Blacks: DC, Detroit, Atlanta, and NYC, thugs uber alles. Indeed Tyler Perry has made movie after movie urging Black women not to thug it up, to no avail.

    EVEN in the ghetto, there are decent, law abiding, Black men. These are known as beta males.

    The missing men are a preference for thuggery among Black women, strongest among all races. You don't see that among Whites, Asians, even Hispanics ... to the same degree. But its coming.

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  17. Okay, so the HBD explanation for Black male early deaths and Black low male-female ratios is that Black ppl simply are more aggressive/impulsive. But then why do we see the same thing happening to Eastern Europeans? Why is it that Eastern European men drink, fight, drive recklessly, live recklessly and have even shorter life expectancies than Black men? Last time I checked, the African American male life expectancy was 68 and the Russian male life expectancy is 59. Also, Russian American men don't seem to have the same problems as Russian men in Russia do. This may just be a consequence of what happens when a culture, or subculture promotes an overly macho, aggressive, and short-term-thinking ethos. I feel bad for African American and Eastern European women because they have to deal with a shortage of men, men of low quality getting women of high quality (hyperandry?), and rampant infidelity among men with girlfriends/wives.

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  18. I checked some UN data, guessing that numbers in Africa might be high or interesting, but they weren't. Ukraine had the highest ratio that I saw.

    What did surprise me is that Qatar has more than twice as many men as women. Yuck. Apparently they import their physical labor, import their mental labor (and don't trust women in IT) and women from other places don't want to go there anyway.

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  19. @anony-mouse: "According to SATC there a lot of Black she-males in parts of Manhattan. Even worse news for the ladies (but better news for De Niro)."

    And Hugh Grant. And Eddie Murphy.

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  20. Cameron Hanes4/19/13, 4:57 AM

    "Worse yet, with nearly another million black men in prison or the military...."


    Like how they added that 'military' part to try to cover the prison. Yeah, that's where they've all been going- to the military!

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  21. EVEN in the ghetto, there are decent, law abiding, Black men. These are known as beta males.

    Yes, many a ghetto fight has started because two black males can't seem to decide which one of them is less beta.

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  22. I'm reminded of a sign held by a black woman outside a liquor store in Bakersfield in September, 2011, after its Cambodian owner shot and killed a young black man with a long felony record who punched him after being denied a free can of beer:
    "Stop the Violence!" LOL.

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