here is a category in social science called ‘father absence.’ The absence of a father is known to researchers to be a significant factor in the success or failure of children. The fact is, fathers make a huge and irreplaceable difference in the lives of their children in terms of education, income, abuse, mental and physical health, drug use, sexual activity, pregnancy and almost every other social indicator. Here are just a few items from the National Fatherhood Initiative.
Education: Fatherless children are twice as likely to drop out of school. Father involvement in schools is associated with the higher likelihood of a student getting mostly A's. This was true for fathers in biological parent families, for stepfathers, and for fathers heading single-parent families. Half of all children with highly involved fathers in two-parent families reported getting mostly A’s through 12th grade, compared to 35.2 percent of children of nonresident father families.
Poverty: Children in father-absent homes are five times more likely to be poor. In 2002, 7.8 percent of children in married-couple families were living in poverty, compared to 38.4 percent of children in femalehouseholder families. A child with a nonresident father is 54 percent more likely to be poorer than his or her father.
Infants and Early Childhood: Infant mortality rates are 1.8 times higher for infants of unmarried mothers than for married mothers. A study of 3,400 middle school children indicated that not living with both biological parents quadruples the risk of having an affective disorder.
"The fact is, fathers make a huge and irreplaceable difference in the lives of their children ..."
Incarceration: Even after controlling for income, youths in father-absent households still had significantly higher odds of incarceration than those in mother-father families. Youths who never had a father in the household experienced the highest odds.
Drugs and Delinquency: Adolescents, particularly boys, in single-parent families were at higher risk of status, property and person delinquencies. Moreover, students attending schools with a high proportion of children of single parents are also at risk. Of the 228 students studied, those from single-parent families reported higher rates of drinking and smoking as well as higher scores on delinquency and aggression tests when compared to boys from two-parent households.
Sexual Activity: Being raised by a single mother raises the risk of teen pregnancy, marrying with less than a high school degree, and forming a marriage where both partners have less than a high school degree. Researchers using a pool from both the U.S. and New Zealand found strong evidence that father absence has an effect on early sexual activity and teenage pregnancy. Teens without fathers were twice as likely to be involved in early sexual activity and seven times more likely to get pregnant as an adolescent.
Child Abuse: An analysis of child abuse cases in a nationally representative sample of 42 counties found that children from single-parent families are more likely to be victims of physical and sexual abuse than children who live with both biological parents. Compared to their peers living with both parents, children in single parent homes had: