A viral video making the rounds on TikTok is yet another dismal reminder that college-educated Black women have a harder time making a love connection than their white counterparts.
According to Insider, white females in the video are showing off their engagement rings at graduation, a phenomenon that is commonplace at Southern colleges and universities and is known as “ring by spring” or earning a “MRS degree.”
This is not so much the case for Black women who are reportedly 53 percent less likely to marry a well-educated man than their white counterparts. The reasons for this gap vary, ranging from sheer preference to uncontrollable variables like stereotypes and Western beauty ideals as well as different life goals.
Importantly, Black women tend to focus on ensuring they’re putting in the work to be well off financially. “Our goal is to secure a career and in turn, secure our families,” opines Anjerrika Bean, assistant director of Howard University’s Center for Women, Gender and Global Leadership. “Securing a spouse isn’t the ultimate agenda for us. That doesn’t mean we aren’t interested in it, but it isn’t the reason we are choosing to further our education at said institution.”
Also, it’s worth noting that just because Black women with college degrees don’t report getting married at high rates doesn’t mean they aren’t engaging in intimate relationships.
“Marriage has increasingly become an institution that is tied to social class “like expensive proposals, rings, and weddings — all very white behaviors,” asserted professor Jennifer Lundquis, co-author of “The Dating Divide: Race and Desire in the Era of Online Romance,” Insider reported. “So I think it’s important often to spread the category to be about cohabitating partners as well. There’s still differences, but they do look a lot more similar, across race and education when we factor in…
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