What is the Impact of Children without a Father?
14 March, 2008 at 9:39 am (Family)
The following information is taken from this website. The statistics refer to the United States but no doubt can be applied to us who live in the UK.
How many children live without their fathers, and what is the impact on children?
In 1960, 7 million children were living without their fathers. Today the number has soared to 24 million, according to the National Fatherhood Initiative. Nearly two-fifths of all kids live in homes without their father. Of those children, more than half have never been in their father’s home, and 40% have not seen them in at least a year. Never in the history of the world has there ever been such an abandonment of children by their fathers!
Impact Increases for Decades: Dr. Wallerstein recently re-interviewed children of divorce 25 years after the divorce. Her conclusion is chilling: “Adults get over divorce, but unlike adults, children’s suffering does not reach a peak at divorce. The impact increases over time, throughout the first three decades of life and in all developmental stages.”
The impact is calamitous:
- Teen Suicide: As divorces tripled, teen suicide rates tripled. Broken homes contribute to three of four teen suicides and four of five psychiatric admissions.
- Poverty: Many kids are pushed into poverty. Children whose fathers left experienced their 1985 income fall from $2,435 a month to $1,543 four months later, a 37% drop. Since 1970, child poverty grew by 42 percent. Isabel Sawhill, of the Urban Institute says, “The rapid growth in the number of children living in single-parent families can explain virtually all of the growth in poverty among children since 1960.”
- Out-of-Wedlock Births: Children growing up with only one parent — compared to kids with both parents — are three times more likely to have a child out of wedlock, 2.5 times more likely to be teen parents, and twice as likely to drop out of school or become delinquent.
- Prison: Of juveniles or young adults serving in long-term correctional facilities, 70% did not live with both parents when they were growing up.
- Future Divorce: When children of divorce marry, they are much more likely to experience divorce themselves. Why? “They more often escalate conflict and reduce communication” with a spouse than those from intact homes.
