5 - Choice, Circumstance, or Both?

Summary

Chapter 5 highlights that a large share of the singlehood scholarship draws little attention to the race or class dimensions of this demographic shift of the rise in singlehood. Collectively, Chapter 5 argues that the singlehood scholarship overlooks how systemic inequalities, including racism and gendered racism, shape singlehood among Black adults – especially Black women. Such shortcomings are particularly relevant when it comes to looking at whether Black individuals are single through choice or circumstance (or both), and what the implications of this are for the Love Jones Cohort particularly and the Black middle-class more generally. Chapter 5 looks at the degree to whether the women and men of the Love Jones Cohort chose their SALA status, and how systemic inequalities, institutional constraints, and societal pressures play a role in such decision-making (or lack thereof), particularly among the Cohort’s women. Chapter 5 suggests that while many hope or anticipate that they will one day marry and so leave the Cohort, this is not something they are willing to pay any price to achieve – and introduces the term “respectability singleness.”