Black women’s statistics show movement across education, work, family life, financial security, and health. The measures below span 1970 to 2024, with each figure tied to its stated year, population, geography, and source.
Contents
- Education and family life
- Income, earnings, and financial assets
- Labor force participation and occupations
- Work, poverty, and historical employment
- Maternal health
- Breast cancer outcomes
Education and family life
Educational attainment among Black women ages 25 and older rose substantially between 2000 and 2024. In 2000, 15.4% had earned at least a bachelor’s degree. By 2024, the share was 30.7%, according to the Pew Research Center’s 2024 analysis. These are U.S. measures for the specified age group, and the two percentages describe different points in time rather than a single-year estimate.
Pew Research Center also reported several 2024 measures of marriage and marital history among Black adults and Black women:
- 29% of Black adults were married.
- Black women were less likely to be married than Black men.
- 25% of Black women were divorced, separated, or widowed.
- Among married Black women, 86% had a Black spouse.
- Among married Black women, 14% had a spouse who was not Black.
The spouse figures describe the racial identity of the spouse among married Black women; they are not a measure of all Black women. The marriage-status figure for Black adults and the marital-history figure for Black women also describe different populations.
Income, earnings, and financial assets
The Urban Institute’s 2023 Black-women wealth analysis reported a median annual income of $35,749 for Black women. In the same analysis, Black women had average financial assets of $24,993 and median financial assets of $1,251. The difference between average and median values indicates that these are separate distribution measures: the average is influenced by higher values, while the median identifies the midpoint.
The analysis reported these comparison figures for women overall and Black men:
| Group | Average financial assets | Median financial assets |
|---|---|---|
| Black women | $24,993 | $1,251 |
| All women | $100,045 | $6,589 |
| Black men | $51,369 | $2,274 |
The same Urban Institute analysis gave Black women an average salary of $22,258 and a median salary of $12,567. It also reported average retirement wealth of $11,157 and median retirement wealth of $0 for Black women. For comparison, average retirement wealth was $25,763 for all women and $19,382 for Black men. These figures come from the Urban Institute’s 2023 analysis and should be read as the measures defined there, not as current wage or retirement projections.
Another 2023 Urban Institute income-and-wealth policymaking brief found that the median wealth of single Black women was around zero. Nearly half of single Black women had zero or negative wealth or savings in that brief. “Around zero” is the source’s description of the median, while “nearly half” is a rounded characterization rather than an exact percentage.
Employment earnings provide another view. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that in 2023, Black women working full time for wages or salaries had median usual weekly earnings of $889. The corresponding figures were $1,021 for White women, $1,299 for Asian women, and $970 for Black men.
| Group, 2023 | Median usual weekly earnings |
|---|---|
| Black women | $889 |
| White women | $1,021 |
| Asian women | $1,299 |
| Black men | $970 |
The BLS reported Black women’s 2023 earnings as 91.6% of Black men’s earnings. In a separate 2022 BLS comparison, Black women’s median weekly earnings were 68% of Asian women’s earnings. From 1979 to 2022, inflation-adjusted median weekly earnings for Black women increased by 31%, according to BLS Highlights of Women’s Earnings in 2022. The years and measures differ, so the long-term change should not be substituted for the 2023 weekly amount.
Labor force participation and occupations
Black women’s labor force participation rate reached 63.5% in 1999, the peak identified in the BLS’s 2018 African Americans in the U.S. Labor Force report. The rate was 59.4% in 2016. That report projected a 58.8% rate for Black women by 2026; this is a forecast made in the 2018 report, not a measured 2026 result.
The BLS reported a 60.5% labor force participation rate for Black women in 2019, compared with 57.4% for women overall. Participation is a labor-market measure and is distinct from the share of workers in a particular occupation.
Black women’s share of the Black labor force also changed over time. They made up 44.7% of the Black labor force in 1972. In 1988, Black women and Black men each made up 50%. From 1989 to 2000, Black women’s share rose to 53% while Black men’s share fell to 47%. In 2018, Black women made up 53% of the Black labor force and Black men made up 47%, according to BLS reporting.
Occupation data adds detail to where employed Black women were represented. In 2020, Black women were 40.2% of workers in management, professional, and related occupations and 25.3% of workers in service occupations. In 2021, Black women were 39.6% of employed women in management, professional, and related occupations and 14.5% of employed women in management, business, and financial operations occupations. These percentages use the denominators specified by the respective BLS Women in the Labor Force databooks.
Work, poverty, and historical employment
The BLS reported a working-poor rate of 8.1% for Black women in 2020, compared with 5.1% for Black men. The working-poor rate describes a poverty measure among people connected to work; it is not the same as the unemployment rate or the labor force participation rate.
BLS weekly earnings data for 2020 reported median weekly earnings of $764 for Black women and $905 for White women. Black women’s median weekly earnings were 79% of White women’s earnings in that comparison. For the first quarter of 2020, Black women’s median weekly earnings were 90.2% of Black men’s earnings.
Historical Census analysis shows how Black women’s employment was distributed in 1970. Black women comprised about 12% of all employed women and 53% of women private household workers. The first figure describes representation among all employed women; the second describes representation within private household workers, so they should not be combined.
Together, these measures place current earnings and labor-market participation alongside longer historical shifts. They also show why a single statistic cannot summarize economic experience: weekly earnings, annual income, assets, retirement wealth, participation, occupation, and poverty each measure a different dimension.
Maternal health
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported a maternal mortality rate of 50.3 deaths per 100,000 live births for Black women in 2023. In the same CDC report, the rates were 14.5 for White women, 12.4 for Hispanic women, and 10.7 for Asian women.
| Group or age category, 2023 | Maternal mortality rate per 100,000 live births |
|---|---|
| Black women | 50.3 |
| White women | 14.5 |
| Hispanic women | 12.4 |
| Asian women | 10.7 |
| Women younger than 25 | 12.5 |
| Women ages 25 to 39 | 18.1 |
| Women ages 40 and older | 59.8 |
The race categories and age categories are different ways of organizing the CDC’s 2023 data; the age figures are not Black-women-specific. The CDC also stated in 2024 that Black women were three times more likely than White women to die from a pregnancy-related cause. It reported that more than 80% of pregnancy-related deaths in the United States were preventable.
These statistics concern maternal or pregnancy-related mortality, not all causes of death among Black women. The distinction matters because the reported rates use live births or pregnancy-related causes as their reference framework.
Breast cancer outcomes
CDC QuickStats reported that from 2006 to 2016, the breast cancer death rate for non-Hispanic Black women ages 50 to 74 fell from 71.7 to 64.1 deaths per 100,000. The figures describe a specific age range, racial category, cause of death, and period; they are not a rate for all Black women.
For non-Hispanic Black women younger than 45, the CDC reported that breast cancer death rates decreased by an average of 1.9% per year from 2001 to 2023. This is an average annual change across the stated period, while the 2006-to-2016 figures are endpoint rates for women ages 50 to 74. The two measures therefore describe different age groups and should be interpreted separately.
The available health measures show both a decline in the specified breast cancer mortality series and a persistent racial difference in the 2023 maternal mortality comparison. Keeping the dates, age groups, racial definitions, and rate denominators visible is essential when reading these statistics.