Recession hits black men

Consumer confidence and stock-market numbers are heading north; and some economic forecasters even say the recession will be over come late fall.

Not so fast, says Andrew Sum, a labor-economics professor at Northeastern University in Boston: “Unemployment numbers will continue to be high.”

Those numbers are particularly gruesome among young, black males, which is beyond worrisome for the black family and community, experts in those areas say.

For example, for black males ages 20 to 24, the unemployment rate is close to 50 percent; in the black community overall, men have absorbed 100 percent of the job losses 463,000 jobs since the recession started in November 2007.

And even if the economy grows by the forecasted 1.3 percent, it’s not enough to create job growth, says Mr. Sum, who doesn’t anticipate any net job growth until 2011.

“From a fatherhood perspective, it’s going to have an enormous impact on an already fragile community,” says Roland Warren, president of the National Fatherhood Initiative, a nonprofit group aimed at “increasing the proportion of children growing up with an involved, responsible and committed father.”

“So much of the traditional view of the father revolves around his ability to provide,” says Mr. Warren, who writes a column for The Washington Times.

And when he can’t, then what?

The self takes a hit along with the wallet, Mr. Warren says, and adjusting to the idea of mom as the primary breadwinner might take some time. At the same time, Mr. Warren encourages men to embrace their other duties as fathers.

“You can nurture and guide even when you’re not making money and those are the lasting things anyway,” he says.

While older generations may have a harder time assuming the “father as child caregiver” role, young, black men likely will embrace it more readily, says Melinda Chateauvert, assistant professor of African-American studies at the University of Maryland.

“I think there is a changing pattern there,” Ms. Chateauvert says. “I see young black men wanting to be more involved in child care.”

And it’s not like a job search these days requires you to go door to door, she says. A lot of it can be done online while taking care of children, she suggests.

Meanwhile, black women have experienced a small net job gain during this recession, mainly due to the fact that they are overwhelmingly employed in health care and education, two sectors that haven’t experienced huge layoffs since November 2007, Mr. Sum says.

But the fact that these two sectors are still hiring doesn’t mean black men will flock to them, says Kevin Roy, associate professor of family science at the University of Maryland.

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