Among recent black college graduates, women now earn more than men, according to census figures, and some sociologists say that may be an economic disincentive to marriage.

In fact, black college-educated women have made such financial strides since 1980 that many now earn as much or more than white women with similar education and similar work experience.

The big wage gains for black professional women came in the 1980's as the salaries of white professional women rose slightly and those of black men eroded.

The wage figures, which account for inflation, are analyses of census data conducted for The New York Times by the Economic Policy Institute, a labor-supported research organization in Washington, and by Queens College of the City University of New York.

Among recent college graduates with one to five years on the job, black women earned an average wage of $11.41 an hour in 1991 while white women earned $11.38 an hour and black men $11.26, according to an analysis by Lawrence Mishel and Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute. White men earned $12.85 an hour.

The Queens College analysis found that the median income for college graduates 25 years old and younger was about $18,000 for white men, $17,000 for black women, $16,800 for white women and $16,400 for black men.

Proposed explanations for the disparity included racism, an unintended consequence of affirmative action programs -- employing a woman who is black meets two minority hiring goals -- and the fact that the pool of recent college graduates from which companies can recruit black employees includes more women than men.

The Economic Policy Institute's findings represented a reversal from 1979 when the average hourly wage among blacks who had recently graduated from college was $11.93 for men, in 1993 dollars, and $10.39 for women.

By 1989, the wage for men in that category had shrunk to $11.06, while the wage for the women had swelled to $11.70. Among blacks with only a high school education, the wages of men and women eroded in the 1980's; black men began the 1990's just barely ahead of white women.

While the gains by black women confirm the value of a college degree and the availability of jobs, some experts say that gain could discourage marriage within the black middle class because women often hesitate to marry men who earn less.

Compounding the problem for better-educated black women is that they significantly outnumber better-educated black men, and the gap in education and income is growing, said William Julius Wilson, the University of Chicago professor of sociology who produces the "black marriageable male index," a gauge of the deficit of employed black men available to marry black women.

The wage gap between college-educated black women and men was slight and it may close altogether as black men advance professionally. But while income differentials among blacks have traditionally been narrower than among whites, the latest shift defies the wage advantage generally enjoyed by men -- a shift that has persisted historically without regard to schooling or jobs, race or ethnicity.

Economists and sociologists say the disparity reflects setbacks by black men relative to both black women and whites. And in addition to discouraging marriage, they say, income disparity may encourage divorce in the black middle-class, although to a lesser degree than it does among lower economic groups in which a husband or prospective husband may have no income at all.

Dr. Lynn Burbridge, an economist at the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, said: "The most successful black families, those that come anywhere close to parity with whites, are the two-earner, two-parent families. Will a woman feel less inclined to marry? There still are huge advantages to maximizing two incomes. But when you talk about individual people, will it create strains in a marriage? It probably will."

Daniela Ballard, a 26-year-old black New Yorker with two graduate degrees and a job in corporate finance, said that while income disparity might represent a disincentive for some women to marry, "in the black community there's less of a stigma if a woman marries a man who makes less than she does." Part of the reason, she said, is because it has not been unusual for women to have earned as much or more than men among lower-income groups.

Still, said Dr. Francisco L. Rivera-Batiz, director of the Institute for Urban and Minority Education at Teachers College at Columbia University, "marriage involves to some extent an economic component, and if the attraction of black males diminishes because of their lower earning power that should reduce the rate that black women would marry black men."

When Victor and Susan Bracey of Culver City, Calif., a black couple, married five years ago, she was working and he was in graduate school. Even after he earned his master's degree, her income grew faster.

"We both came out of college with high hopes and dreams -- we didn't know there'd be a discrepancy," Mrs. Bracey said. "But some of my friends who are not married have a fear of marrying someone who makes less than they do or doesn't have the same earnings potential. If they feel that way, they may never get married."

Mr. Bracey put the couple's situation this way: "My wife makes about twice what I make. I'm a commercial loan officer for Wells Fargo. She is director of finance for Fox. Eventually, I may catch up. But it's been easier for black women to go a lot farther than black men. Perhaps there's some unconscious racism -- companies can see the female side and then, perhaps, the black. Or, maybe there's a glass ceiling for black men."

Samuel M. Hall, director of the Career Services Office at the predominantly black Howard University in Washington, said, "For whatever the reason, black women are more acceptable than black men."

"I think a lot of it is the stereotypes about black men," Mr Hall said. "You have to remember who is doing the majority of the hiring, and if the hiring managers have that stereotype it's naive to believe that people up the line don't have it as well."

Mark A. Bishop, a senior personnel representative for Federal Express, said that the earnings disparity had less to do with stereotypes than with the fact that "there are simply more black females in the marketplace."

Graph: "DEMOGRAPHICS -- Differing Wages: Male and Female" shows average hourly pay for college-educated white and black males and females. (Source: Lawrence Mishel and Jane Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute)