The Love Jones Cohort
Single and Living Alone in the Black Middle Class

This book provides a structural understanding of how identities of race, class, gender, and singleness reconfigure the Black middle class.

Kris Marsh (Author)

9781316612910, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 9 February 2023

246 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.38 kg

'[This book] is necessary to read for studies of Black families and Social Stratification and is an essential addition to race, class, and family scholarship. … [it] addresses a longstanding and glaring gap in sociological knowledge about a growing subgroup within the Black middle class.' Marbella Eboni Hill, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity

Drawing from stratification economics, intersectionality, and respectability politics, The Love Jones Cohort centers on the voices and lifestyles of members of the Black middle class who are single and living alone (SALA). While much has been written about both the Black middle class and the rise of singlehood, this book represents a first foray into bridging these two concepts. In studying these intersections, The Love Jones Cohort provides a more nuanced understanding of how race, gender, and class, coupled with social structures, shape five central lifestyle factors of Black middle-class adults who are SALA. The book explores how these Black adults define family and friends and decide on whether and how to pursue romantic relationships, articulate the ebbs and flows of being Black and middle class, select where to live and why, accumulate and disseminate wealth, and maintain overall health, well-being, and coping mechanisms.

Introduction
1. Scholarly debates on defining the Black middle class
2. How the Love Jones Cohort define the Black middle class
3. The Love Jones Cohort and Black middle-class identity
4. The rise of never-married Black singles
5. Choice, circumstance, or both?
6. Lifestyle ebbs and flows
7. Intergenerational mobility and disseminating wealth
8. Homeownership and the accumulation of wealth
9. Neighborhood decisions and interactions
10. Health, mental well-being, and coping strategies (with Courtney Thomas)
Conclusion
Afterword.

Subject Areas: Economics [KC], Sociology [JHB]