Many of the demographic differences among African-American households that various studies in ethnicity find are also evident in the 1996-97 MacroMonitor survey—for example, the prevalence of female decision makers, the greater incidence of young children, lower levels of college graduates, and lower incidences of married or cohabiting households. What those studies do not frequently show is the generally conservative nature of African-American households in terms of financial attitudes about investing and debt and their receptivity to specific financial products, especially insurance. Some of the other findings from this examination follow:

• African-American households are less likely than all other households to own most financial assets, but they are approaching parity in the more basic services.
• African-American households use cash for financial transactions and tend to prefer store credit cards.
• African-American households have levels of life insurance comparable with those of all other households, lower levels of health insurance, and diverse levels of property casualty insurance.
• African Americans appear to recognize their situation and are receptive to more information about most areas of financial services.

The figure below shows topics about which African Americans would want more information.