Research on father-headed households: Family Structure, Family Processes, and Adolescent Delinquency (2004)

Part of a new series on what the research literature says about father-headed households. Because this article is fairly long, I summarized the findings in bullet form. The major points are highlighted in bold.

http://jrc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/41/1/58

Family Structure, Family Processes, and Adolescent Delinquency: The Significance of Parental Absence Versus Parental Gender
Stephen Demuth
Center for Family and Demographic Research at Bowling Green State University

Susan L. Brown

Center for Family and Demographic Research at Bowling Green State University

One third of all children are born to unmarried mothers and over one half of children will spend some time in a single-parent family. In fact, single-father families are the fastest growing family form. Using data from the 1995 National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, the authors extend prior research that has investigated the effects of growing up in a two-parent versus single-mother family by examining adolescent delinquency in single-father families, too. This strategy helps us to identify the mechanisms through which living with a single parent increases delinquency, notably, whether the effect is predominantly a function of parental absence (i.e., one versus two parents) or parental gender (i.e., single mother versus single father). The results indicate that adolescents in single-parent families are significantly more delinquent than their counterparts residing with two biological, married parents, although these differences are reduced once the authors account for various family processes. Furthermore, family processes fully account for the higher levels of delinquency exhibited by adolescents from single-father versus single-mother families.

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Vol. 41, No. 1, 58-81 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/0022427803256236

Summary of the Results

* Adolescents in single-father families report the highest level of delinquency, followed by those in fatherstepmother and single-mother families.

* The gender of the single parent is significant; adolescents from single-father families are more delinquent than are those from single-mother families.

* Single-father families are characterized by somewhat lower levels of direct and indirect parental controls than are single-mother families.

"In summary, our study demonstrates that parental absence is positively related to adolescent delinquency, although the influence of family structure is mediated by family processes. Among adolescents in single-parent families, levels of delinquency are higher in single-father than single-mother families, but this difference is entirely accounted for by the weaker direct and indirect controls exerted by single fathers. The high levels of delinquency characterizing adolescents in single-father families reflects the particularly low levels of involvement, supervision, monitoring, and closeness exerted by the fathers."