Children Living Without Their Fathers: Population Estimates and Indicators of Educational Well-being

8/18/2019 Children Living Without Their Fathers: Population Estimates and Indicators of Educational Well-being

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Children Living Without Their Fathers: Population

Estimates and Indicators of Educational Well-being

Matthew DeBell

Accepted: 14 May 2007 / Published online: 3 July 2007 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007

Abstract This paper estimates the number of American children in grades K–12 who live

without their biological fathers and examines the association of absent-father status with

children’s well-being. The 2003 Parent and Family Involvement in Education Survey of the

National Household Education Surveys Program (n = 12,426) shows that 28% percent of

White students, 39% of Hispanic students, 69% of Black students, and 36% overall live

without their fathers. In bivariate comparisons, absent-father status is associated with reduced

well-being: worse health, lower academic achievement, worse educational experiences, andless parental involvement in school activities. When socio-economic factors are controlled,

father-absence is associated with small deficits of well-being. The findings suggest that the

conventional wisdom may exaggerate the detrimental effects of father absence.

Keywords Absent fathers Fatherlessness Child well-being

1 Introduction

About half of American children will spend part of their childhood in a single-parent

family (Andersson 2002), and most of these children will be living without their father.

Will they be worse off for their fathers’ absence? The conventional wisdom propagated by

researchers, social commentators, and recent presidents (Bush 2001; Clinton 1995) is that

they will. The widespread absence of fathers from children’s homes has been called ‘‘a

social disaster’’ (Lowry 2005) and ‘‘arguably the most consequential trend of our time’’

(Horn and Bush 2003). Public opinion also appears to reflect this concern, as a Gallup poll

in 1999 found that 72% of Americans agreed that fatherlessness is the country’s most

significant family or social problem (National Center for Fathering 1999).

Soc Indic Res (2008) 87:427–443DOI 10.1007/s11205-007-9149-8


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Is the conventional wisdom well founded? It amounts to the claim that the well-being of

children living with their fathers is much greater than the well-being of children living

without their fathers. Perhaps surprisingly, this particular comparison is rare in the

empirical research literature. This paper makes that comparison to better inform discussion

about the contribution of fathers to children’s well-being. Focusing on school-age children(kindergartners through grade 12), the paper addresses three research questions about the

extent and significance of father absence in the United States: (a) How many school-age

children live without their biological fathers? (b) How is living without a biological father

associated with social and demographic characteristics? (c) How is living without a bio-

logical father associated with indicators of children’s well-being, such as health, academic

achievement, educational experiences, and parent involvement in their school?

Most research on family structure and children’s well-being has focused on comparisons

of two-parent families with other arrangements, or on single-mother-families compared to

other arrangements. The father-present vs. father-absent comparison is standard in public

discourse, but rare in research. One good methodological reason for this is that the fathers-present-or-absent comparison results in substantial within-groups variation. That is, it

clumps together children living in several different family arrangements. Children living

with single fathers, or with the biological father and a stepmother, or with both biological

parents, all fall in the father-present category. This is clearly a heterogeneous group, and

social scientists usually prefer to make comparisons between more narrowly defined

groups when they test and refine theories.

Though most research has not measured father absence per se, there is indirect evidence

that children living without fathers may be disadvantaged on a wide range of indicators of

well-being, including health, educational experiences, and academic performance. For auseful review, see Sigle-Rushton and McLanahan (2004). Children living with two bio-

logical parents tend to be healthier than children who do not (Coiro et al. 1994; Dawson

1991) and are less likely ever to have been suspended or expelled from school or to have

repeated a grade (Dawson 1991; Zill 1996). They also have higher average grades (Lee

1993) and are less likely to have developmental problems (Corio et al. 1994; Dawson

1991). Similarly, children living with single mothers are more likely to become sexually

active at a young age (DeLeire and Kalil 2002; Flewelling and Bauman 1990) and have

less academic success (Entwisle and Alexander 1995, 1996) than children living in other

family arrangements, and adults who were raised in mother-only families are worse-off

financially than those raised by both parents (McLanahan and Sandefur 1994).Reports such as these certainly raise questions about the effects of father absence on

children. Just as certainly, they do not constitute (and were not designed to be) rigorous

empirical tests of the effects of father absence. The contrast between the certainty

expressed in tendentious public discourse and the indirect nature of most of the evidence

points to a growing disjuncture between research results and policy discussion. This dis-

juncture is well-illustrated in the National Fatherhood Initiative’s report, Father Facts

(Horn and Sylvester 2002). This report, which is widely disseminated with over 100,000

copies in print (Sylvester and Reich 2002), summarizes a large body of research for the

purpose of stressing fathers’ importance in children’s lives. In one typical passage (Hornand Sylvester 2002, pp. 116–117), it cites seven studies (Bankston and Caldas, 1998;

Bisnairs, Fireston, and Rynard, 1990; Cooksey and Fondell 1996; Luster and McAdoo

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fathers to the achievement of children with absent fathers. The studies lend indirect support

to the hypothesis that father absence is harmful, but they do not directly test that

hypothesis. This illustrates the failure of current research to squarely address public claims

that fathers, per se, are essential for successful child development. In response to the

growing disjunction between research and policy discussion, this paper makes the father-present vs. father-absent comparison.

Researchers generally agree that some of the outcomes associated with (proxy measures

of) father absence are explained by income differences. Income is relatively strongly

associated with child well-being (Duncan and Brooks-Gunn 1997), and children living with

two parents benefit from higher average household income and lower poverty rates than

children in other family arrangements (Ricciuti 2004). There is evidence that when welfare

states provide resources to single-parent families, children improve academically (Pong

et al. 2003).

Other explanations of differences in children’s well-being remain contentious because

research on parenting has developed contrasting theoretical accounts of the effects thatfathers may have on children’s development. One gender difference perspective holds that

fathers and mothers each make unique contributions to child development because of

different parental gender roles (Downey et al. 1998). For example, by assuming that

parents follow traditional gender roles, researchers may suppose that women are more

effective nurturers and men are more effective disciplinarians (Popenoe 1996; Thompson

et al. 1992), and that men are more effective in fostering the development of children’s

cognitive skills, but women are more effective in fostering the development of interper-

sonal skills (Carlsmith 1964). When one parent is not present, the single parent may not

make the same contributions to child development that two parents can make in concert. Inthis perspective, relatively immutable socialized gender differences or biological (sex)

differences prevent an individual parent from occupying both gender roles at once. As a

result, children living without fathers experience less of the unique and valuable parental

behavior that fathers are most likely to provide, which may reduce children’s well-being in

the short or long term. It should be noted that evidence from several studies is inconsistent

with this perspective (e.g. Downey and Powell 1993; Downey et al. 1998; Powell and

Downey 1997), but the question of its validity is unresolved. To the extent that this

perspective is valid, we would expect children living without their fathers to exhibit less

disciplined behavior and inferior academic performance.

A second perspective on gender differences holds that although it is empirically true thatfathers and mothers behave differently with their children, parents adapt their behaviors to

the child-rearing situation (Downey et al. 1998). Though parents in two-parent households

typically adopt a gendered division of labor for parenting tasks, parents in single-parent

households provide a broader range of care. For example, although mothers are more

highly involved with their children than fathers are in two-parent households, mothers and

fathers in single-mother and single-father households are about equally likely to be highly

involved with their children (Nord et al. 1997). From this perspective, living without one’s

father would not be expected to have any direct relationship with child well-being, once

correlates of absent-father status (such as income and parent education) are controlled.Apart from the differences that potentially may be attributed to the gender roles of

mothers and fathers, fruitful research has looked at parenting in terms of resources (Zill

Children Living Without Their Fathers 429


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families could be worse off than children in two parent families, but the presence or

absence of fathers per se would not be the reason for differences. Rather, because children

without resident fathers generally live in single-mother families, children could be worse

off in these families because the single parent brings fewer resources to the parent–child

relationship. Differences in child well-being between no-father households and two-parenthouseholds could be attributable to the number of parents affecting the availability of

family resources, not to the gender and gender-specific behavior of the absent parent.

The association of family structure with children’s well-being makes it reasonable to

ask whether living without a resident father puts children at a disadvantage. Such a dis-

advantage, if it exists, could be related to gender differences relating to the potentially

unique contributions of mothers and fathers, or resource differences associated with family

structure, among other factors. The remainder of this paper describes the population of

school-age children living without their fathers, examines the association of this status with

children’s well-being (e.g., health, behaviors, and indicators of school success), and con-

siders what the data imply about the roles of gender, resources, and other factors in shapingchildren’s well-being.

2 Method

This paper is based on data collected in the Parent and Family Involvement in Education

Survey of the National Household Education Surveys Program of 2003 (NHES). The

NHES is an ongoing program of telephone surveys that are representative of the civilian

non-institutionalized population of the United States. In 2003, interviews were conducted

with the parents or guardians of 12,426 children in kindergarten through grade 12, inregular school or in homeschool. The overall weighted response rate was 53.8%. When

weighted, these data are representative of 52.6 million children in grades K–12 (Hagedorn

et al. 2004). The unit of analysis in the NHES is the child.

The NHES has the advantages of being representative of the nation’s school-age children

and permitting estimation of the number of children living without their biological fathers.

NHES has multiple measures of well-being that are appropriate for children, and it is a recent,

timely data collection, with a large sample. In contrast to some other data sources that have

been used in the study of families and child development, the NHES avoids undercounting

fathers (e.g., in the National Survey of Families and Households; Sorensen 1997), failing toidentify the presence of a child’s father in the household (e.g., the Current Population Survey),

or representing only a narrow age range of children (e.g., the National Longitudinal Survey of

Youth and the Department of Education’s longitudinal studies of high school classes).

Due to the complex sample design of the NHES surveys, these data must be weighted

for analysis, and estimates of sampling error and statistical significance must account for

the effects of the complex design. Estimates in this paper were prepared using SUDAAN

software, and standard errors were computed using replication methods. All comparisons

of percentage estimates presented in the text were tested using the two-tailed Student’s t

test and are statistically significant at the 0.05 level or better.

3 Results

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Table 1 presents population estimates of school-age children not living with their bio-

logical fathers in early 2003. About 36% of the 52.6 million students in grades K–12 do not

live with their fathers (19 million children). The percentage of children without resident

fathers varies significantly by some population groups. Twenty-eight percent of White

students do not live with their fathers, while 39% of Hispanic students and 69% of Black students do not. Sixty-three percent of children living in households with incomes of

$25,000 or less have no biological father at home, compared to 18% of those in households

Table 1 Percentage of school-age children living without their biological father in 2003, by childcharacteristics (n = 12,426)

Characteristics Population

Total Percent SE

Total 52,581,643 36 0.6

Sex

Male 26,930,561 36 0.7

Female 25,651,082 37 0.8

Grade

K 3,757,084 30 1.6

1–5 20,626,169 34 0.9

6–8 12,472,218 39 1.0

9–12 15,709,344 39 0.8

Race/ethnicity

White 32,843,774 28 0.7

Hispanic 8,321,817 39 1.3

Black 8,273,547 69 1.6

Other 3,142,505 34 2.3

Household income

$25,000 or less 12,818,549 63 1.3

$25,001–40,000 9,091,008 44 1.7

$40,001–75,000 15,945,649 28 1.1

$75,001 or more 14,726,436 18 0.9

Parent education attainment

Less than high school credential 3,687,258 62 2.4

High school credential/equiv. 13,142,654 47 1.2

Some college 16,545,277 41 1.0

Bachelor’s degree 10,165,432 22 1.1

Graduate education 9,041,022 18 1.2

Mother’s age at child’s birth

17 or younger 4,896,355 51 2.0

18–24 14,079,033 50 1.0

25–29 14,576,914 31 0.9



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making over $75,000. About 62% of children living in households where the parent(s)

completed less than a high school diploma or equivalent have no resident father, compared

to 18% of children who have at least one parent with a graduate education. These estimates

show that if living without a resident father puts children at a disadvantage, then this

disadvantage is experienced by a substantial minority of the general population (one inthree school-age children) and by a majority of children in certain population groups.

How is living without a biological father associated with indicators of children’s

well-being?

Researchers rely on many kinds of indicators to gauge the well-being of children. This

paper concentrates on four specific kinds of indicators, selected for their relevance to

school-age children’s development and education. Health indicators are provided by parent

reports of the child’s general health and of whether the child has Attention Deficit Disorder

or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Academic achievement is measured

by parent reports of the child’s grades and whether the child has ever repeated a grade.

Educational experience indicators reflect distinct pieces of information: one is an indicator

of serious problems (suspension or expulsion) and the other represents a positive outcome

(enjoyment of school). Parent involvement in school-based activities is indicated by

attendance at school meetings, events, and conferences, and volunteering and fundraising

for the school. The measurement of each indicator of well-being is further described in the

Appendix.

Table 2 shows that living without a biological father in the household is associated with

many disadvantages. By every indicator presented except parent attendance at a teacher

conference, children living without their fathers are at a disadvantage in comparison tochildren living with their fathers. Children without a resident father are reported by their

parent or guardian to be less healthy than children with a resident father (54% in excellent

Table 2 Percentage of school-age children with selected characteristics, by status of child living with orwithout biological father in 2003 (n = 12,426)

Child characteristics Child with father SE Child without father SE

Health

‘‘Excellent’’ health 64 0.6 54 1.0

Has ADHD 6 0.3 11 0.6

Academic achievement

Ever repeated a grade 7 0.4 16 0.8

Grades mostly As 49 0.7 34 1.0

Educational experiences

Ever suspended or expelled 7 0.3 18 0.6

Enjoys school 92 0.4 86 0.7

Parent involvement in school

A parent attends school meetings 90 0.4 84 0.7

A parent attends teacher conference 78 0.5 76 0.8

A parent attends school events 73 0.5 65 1.0

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health compared to 64%) and are more likely to have ADHD (11% compared to 6%). They

receive lower grades (34% compared to 49% ‘‘mostly As’’) and are more likely to have

repeated a grade (16% compared to 7%) and to have been suspended or expelled (18% vs.

7%). Consistent with these school experiences, children with no resident father are

somewhat less likely to enjoy school (86% compared to 92%). Children with a residentfather are more likely to have at least one parent involved in school activities such as

attending a school meeting (90% compared to 84%), volunteering at the school or serving

on a committee (47% compared to 32%), attending a sporting event, play, or other event at

school (73% compared to 65%), or fundraising for the school (64% compared to 58%).

4 Multivariate Analyses

When students’ characteristics are controlled, is not having a resident father associated

with poorer health, poorer school performance, less parental involvement at school, andother indicators of diminished well-being? The NHES data are from a survey conducted at

a single point in time and thus cannot be used to establish causality, but they can be used to

examine statistical associations that may either highlight patterns for further study or

establish that a strong causal relationship is unlikely because covariation is weak. Table 1

showed bivariate relationships between resident birth father status and child characteristics,

and Table 2 examined bivariate relationships between resident father status and indicators

of child well-being. Many of the indicators of child well-being presented in Table 2 are

associated with child characteristics. For example, children’s academic achievement is

related to parental education and to income (Nord and West 2001). In order to study howthe characteristics identified in Table 1 are related to outcomes such as those examined in

Table 2 when the characteristics are examined simultaneously, multiple regression anal-

yses are presented. The regression analyses answer the question, ‘‘If one controls for the

characteristics in Table 1—sex, grade, race/ethnicity, income, parent education, and

mother’s age at the child’s birth—how strongly is the child’s father’s residence status (and

the control variables) associated with the different indicators of child well-being?’’

Tables 3–6 present a total of seven regression analyses in which indicators of child well-

being are the dependent variables and child characteristics, including children’s fathers’

residence status, are the independent variables.

Regression analyses of child health indicators are presented in Table 3. The analysis of general health does not show an association between father’s residence status and the

child’s health being reported as ‘‘excellent,’’ when controlling for child and household

characteristics. The second analysis shows that when controlling for child and household

characteristics—sex, grade, race/ethnicity, income, parental education, and mother’s age at

child’s birth—father absence remains associated with the child having ADHD.

Odds ratios presented for the logistic regression analyses show that the odds of a child

having ADHD are 2.25 times greater when the child does not live with the father. (Odds

are the probability of an occurrence divided by the probability of non-occurrence. The odds

ratio is the odds of one occurrence divided by the odds of another.) This effect sizes issmall (Chinn 2000; Cohen 1992). In these analyses, other variables are more strongly

associated with measures of child well-being than is the father’s residence status. For



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ADHD than are White children—and these differences are larger than the difference for

father’s residence status.

Table 4 presents regression analyses of academic achievement indicators, which show

that father absence is associated with the child having repeated a grade in school and with

Table 3 Logistic regression analysis of child health indicators (n = 12,422)

Independent variables Child in ‘‘excellent’’ health Child has ADHD

B SE e B B SE e B

Father not living with child 0.1 0.05 0.91 0.8** 0.09 2.25

Child is female 0.1 0.04 0.95 1.2*** 0.09 0.31

Grade

1–5 0.2 0.10 0.86 0.9** 0.26 2.35

6–8 0.2* 0.11 0.80 1.0*** 0.28 2.66

9–12 0.3** 0.11 0.72 1.0*** 0.28 2.58

Race/ethnicity

Hispanic 0.2** 0.08 0.79 0.6** 0.15 0.56

Black 0.4*** 0.06 0.69 1.1*** 0.17 0.32

Other

0.4*** 0.10 0.65

0.6** 0.20 0.56

Household income

$25,001–$40,000 0.3** 0.09 1.29 0.1 0.16 0.94

$40,001–$75,000 0.4*** 0.07 1.52 0.1 0.15 1.10

$75,001 or more 0.7*** 0.09 1.98 0.1 0.16 1.05


High school credential/equiv. 0.4** 0.13 1.54 0.2 0.26 0.84

Some college 0.5** 0.14 1.61 0.3 0.26 0.78

Bachelor’s degree 0.8*** 0.15 2.30 0.5 0.29 0.60

Graduate education 0.8*** 0.15 2.12

0.5 0.29 0.60


18–24 0.1 0.09 1.14 0.1 0.15 0.87

25–29 0.1 0.08 1.05 0.2 0.17 0.86

30 or older 0.1 0.09 1.07 0.1 0.15 0.92

Intercept 0.2 0.17 0.86 2.7 0.39 0.70

R2 0.06 0.04

% excellent health/ADHD 60.24 7.22

n 12,422 12,422

Note: Reference categories (omitted from the table) are father living with the child, child is male, child gradeKindergarten, White race/ethnicity, household income $25,000 or less, parent education less than a highschool credential, mother’s age at child’s birth less than 18. All variables are dichotomous, coded 1 for yesand 0 for no. e B = exponentiated B, also known as the odds ratio. Data source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Parent and Family Involvement in Education Survey of the 2003 National Household Education Surveys Program

* p < 0.05.**, p < 0.01.***, p < 0.001

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Th d l i t d i T bl 4 i di l t (OLS) i

Table 4 Regression analysis of child academic achievement indicators

Independent variables Child ever repeated a gradea Child’s gradesb

B SE e B B SE Std. B

Father not living with child 0.5*** 0.09 1.59 0.1*** 0.02 0.09

Child is female 0.5*** 0.09 0.59 0.3*** 0.02 0.18

Grade

1–5 1.3*** 0.27 3.51 0.4*** 0.06 0.21

6–8 1.4*** 0.29 4.11 0.5*** 0.06 0.29

9–12 1.7*** 0.28 5.33 0.7*** 0.06 0.37

Race/ethnicity

Hispanic 0.3* 0.12 1.30 0.1* 0.04 0.03

Black 0.3* 0.12 0.78 0.1* 0.03 0.04

Other 0.1 0.19 1.07 0.0 0.05 0.01

Household income

$25,001–$40,000 0.3* 0.12 0.76 0.0 0.04 0.00

$40,001–$75,000 0.6*** 0.11 0.55 0.1 0.03 0.03

$75,001 or more 0.8*** 0.15 0.46 0.1** 0.04 0.06


High school credential/equiv. 0.2 0.14 0.84 0.1 0.05 0.03

Some college 0.6*** 0.16 0.53 0.2** 0.06 0.10

Bachelor’s degree 0.9*** 0.20 0.39 0.3*** 0.06 0.15

Graduate education

1.0*** 0.23 0.37 0.4*** 0.06 0.20


18–24 0.2 0.15 0.82 0.1* 0.04 0.04

25–29 0.2 0.13 0.81 0.1** 0.04 0.07

30 or older 0.4* 0.15 0.70 0.1** 0.04 0.07

Intercept 2.5*** 0.33 0.09 3.3*** 0.08

R2 0.06c 0.13

% ever repeated a grade 10.08

n 12,324 9,776

Note: Reference categories (omitted from the table) are father living with the child, child is male, child gradeKindergarten, White race/ethnicity, household income $25,000 or less, parent education less than a highschool credential, mother’s age at child’s birth less than 18. All independent variables are dichotomous,coded 1 for yes and 0 for no. e B = exponentiated B, also known as the odds ratio. Data source: U.S.Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Parent and Family Involvement inEducation Survey of the 2003 National Household Education Surveys Programa Logistic regression analysis is presentedb Ordinary least squares regression analysis is presentedc Cox and Snell’s R2 for logistic regression is presented

* p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001



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and the interpretation of the results proceeds a bit differently. The grade data indicate

whether the child receives mostly As, mostly Bs, mostly Cs, or mostly Ds or below. In the

regression analysis, grades are coded 4, 3, 2, or 1 to correspond to typical grades of A, B,

C, or D or below. This allows an interpretation of the regression coefficients in terms of the

same intervals on which grade point averages are usually reported.Table 4 shows that father’s residence status is statistically significantly associated with

the child’s grades: when the father does not live with the child, this is associated with

slightly lower grades (effect size 0.09). The unstandardized parameter estimate of 0.1 on

the 1–4 grade scale corresponds to 10% of the difference between grades (e.g. A = 4, B = 3,

the difference is 1, and 0.1/1 = 10%). This difference is enough to change some students’

grades by ‘‘half’’ a grade (e.g. from B to B-minus), so this could be considered a mean-

ingful difference.

Table 5 presents the results of logistic regression analyses of the indicators of school

experiences: whether the child has ever been suspended or expelled from school, and

whether the child enjoys school. In both analyses, not having a resident father is associatedwith the less desirable outcome, but the effect sizes are small.

Looking at suspension or expulsion, the father not living with the child has an odds ratio

of 1.96, indicating a small effect. Large effects are seen for grade level, with older students

being much more likely to have been disciplined this way than are kindergarteners (odds

ratios of 5.86 for grades 1–5, 16.27 for grades 6–8, and 32.23 for grades 9–12); other odds

ratios reflect moderate or small differences.

Children living without their father are 0.61 times as likely (in terms of odds, not

probability) to enjoy school, as reported by a parent or guardian. Other factors are also

associated with school enjoyment: girls are moderately more likely than boys to enjoyschool (odds ratio of 2.16), and high-school and middle-school students are less likely than

the youngest students to enjoy school (odds ratios of 0.21 and 0.35, respectively), but most

other effect sizes are small or negligible (odds ratios from 0.65 to 1.63).

Table 6 presents an OLS regression analysis of an index of parent involvement in

activities at or for the child’s school. Indexes are often used to measure complex

phenomena that are not adequately described by a single survey item. This parent

involvement index is a count of the number of activities that at least one of the child’s

parents has participated in that constitute involvement with the child’s school: attending a

general school meeting; going to a parent–teacher conference; attending a school event

such as a play, sports event, or science fair; volunteering at the school or serving on acommittee; or participating in fundraising for the school. The values of the resulting

variable range from 0 to 5, with a median of 4.0, a mean of 3.4, SD = 1.6, and Cronbach’s

a = 0.62. In a bivariate comparison, children with no resident father have parents involved

in fewer school-related activities than do children with a resident father, but the difference

is small ( B = 0.38; Cohen’s d = 0.13; not shown in tables).

It is important to consider that there are many ways to measure parental involvement in

a child’s education, and that the index examined here does not account for many poten-

tially important aspects of parental involvement with schools, such as the frequency of

involvement, the amount of time spent, the relative importance of the activities to thechild’s well-being, or whether the father, mother, or both are participants. There may also

be benefits to a multidimensional measure (see e.g., Grolnick and Slowiaczek 1994). The

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number of types of school-related activities that parents participate in All of the other

Table 5 Logistic regression analysis of educational experience indicators: child ever suspended orexpelled, and child enjoys school

Independent variables Child ever suspended or expelled Child enjoys school

B SE e B B SE e B

Father not living with child 0.7*** 0.07 1.96 0.5*** 0.08 0.61

Child is female 1.0*** 0.08 0.35 0.8*** 0.07 2.16

Grade

1–5 1.8*** 0.44 5.77 0.4 0.27 0.65

6–8 2.8*** 0.43 15.80 1.1*** 0.27 0.35

9–12 3.5*** 0.44 31.39 1.5*** 0.27 0.21

Race/ethnicity

Hispanic 0.6*** 0.12 1.75 0.3** 0.12 1.40

Black

0.1 0.11 0.87 0.5*** 0.11 1.63Other 0.1 0.19 1.09 0.4* 0.17 1.51

Household income

$25,001–$40,000 0.2 0.13 0.83 0.1 0.11 0.89

$40,001–$75,000 0.3* 0.11 0.76 0.2 0.11 1.23

$75,001 or more 0.5*** 0.13 0.61 0.2 0.14 1.22


High school credential/equiv. 0.3 0.15 0.78 0.2 0.21 0.86

Some college 0.3* 0.14 0.74 0.2 0.2 0.83

Bachelor’s degree

0.8*** 0.16 0.47 0.1 0.22 1.05Graduate education 0.8*** 0.20 0.43 0.4 0.25 1.44


18–24 0.4** 0.13 0.67 0.1 0.12 0.93

25–29 0.6*** 0.13 0.57 0.2 0.13 1.24

30 or older 0.6*** 0.11 0.58 0.1 0.13 0.89

Intercept 3.7*** 0.45 0.03 2.9*** 0.30 17.30

Cox & Snell R2 0.11 0.05

% suspended-expelled/enjoy 11.05 89.69

n 12,422 12,177

Note: Reference categories (omitted from the table) are father living with the child, child sex is male, childgrade Kindergarten, White race/ethnicity, household income $25,000 or less, parent education less than ahigh school credential, mother’s age at child’s birth less than 18. All independent variables are dichotomous,coded 1 for yes and 0 for no. e B = exponentiated B, also known as the odds ratio. Data source: U.S.Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Parent and Family Involvement inEducation Survey of the 2003 National Household Education Surveys Program

* p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001



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5 Discussion

Many children live without their biological fathers. Although bivariate comparisons

Table 6 Ordinary least squares regression analysis of parent involvement index (n = 12,177)

Independent variables Parent involvement index

B SE Std. B

Father not living with child 0.0 0.04 0.01

Child is female 0.1*** 0.03 0.04

Grade

1–5 0.1** 0.05 0.05

6–8 0.4*** 0.05 0.13

9–12 0.1*** 0.06 0.31

Race/ethnicity

Hispanic 0.0 0.06 0.01

Black 0.3*** 0.05 0.07

Other

0.3*** 0.08

0.05

Household income

$25,001–$40,000 0.1* 0.05 0.03

$40,001–$75,000 0.3*** 0.06 0.09

$75,001 or more 0.5*** 0.06 0.15


High school credential/equiv. 0.6*** 0.08 0.19

Some college 0.8*** 0.08 0.26

Bachelor’s degree 1.0*** 0.09 0.29

Graduate education 1.1*** 0.09 0.29


18–24 0.2* 0.06 0.05

25–29 0.2*** 0.06 0.07

30 or older 0.2*** 0.06 0.08

Intercept 2.5*** 0.10

R2 0.22

Note: The parent involvement index ranges from 0 to 5 and is a count of the number of activities that thechild’s parent has participated in at or for the child’s school, counting attending a general meeting, attending

an event, volunteering at the school, attending a parent–teacher conference, and participating in schoolfundraising. All independent variables in the model are dichotomous, coded 1 for yes and 0 for no.Reference categories (omitted from the table) are father living with the child, child is male, child grade isKindergarten, White race/ethnicity, household income $25,000 or less, parent education less than a highschool credential, mother’s age at child’s birth less than 18. Data source: U.S. Department of Education,National Center for Education Statistics, Parent and Family Involvement in Education Survey of the 2003National Household Education Surveys Program

* p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001

438 M. DeBell


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direct effects on children raised without their fathers at home. To the contrary, father

residence status is not strongly associated with child well-being and is but one of many

variables associated with the outcomes studied here.

These data provide some support for the perspective that in the absence of fathers,

children still receive substantially similar care in at least some areas; generally ‘‘excel-lent’’ health (Table 3) and parent involvement in school (Table 6) are not related to father

absence in the regression analyses. (With respect to parent involvement in school, it is

relevant that in two-parent families, mother involvement is generally high and father

involvement is relatively low (Nord and West 2001), so maintaining the overall level of

parent involvement in school when the father is absent may not require much change in a

mother’s involvement. In terms of physical care and time spent with children, mothers in

two-parent families are also more involved than fathers (Aldous et al. 1998).) However,

some of the data are also consistent with the contrasting gender perspective that fathers

provide better discipline than mothers; children not living with their father are more likely

to have been suspended or expelled from school, suggesting greater disciplinary problems(Table 5). Similarly, children living with single fathers are less likely to be suspended or

expelled than children living with single mothers, even when controlling for the inde-

pendent variables analyzed in this report (multiple logistic regression not shown in tables;

b = 0.81, s.e. = 0.37, odds ratio = 0.44).

These data also buttress arguments that resources such as parental education and income

are important. Because several aspects of children’s well-being are associated with income,

parental education, or both, yet father absence is not strongly associated with the measures

of well-being studied here, these data are consistent with the perspective that parental

resources account for part of the variability in child well-being that is associated withfather absence at the bivariate level. For example, although bivariate analysis shows that

children living with their fathers are more likely than children living without their fathers

to be in excellent health (Table 2), multivariate analysis shows no association between

father’s residence status and excellent health (Table 3). The bivariate differences are

accounted for by other variables, including parental education and income.

Continued research on this topic should examine family structure in more depth. One

avenue is continued examination of family structure among households where fathers are

present (following, e.g., Nord and West 2001). The presence of biological fathers may have

different effects on child well-being than the presence of stepfathers or foster fathers, and

the role of fathers may differ in married and cohabiting families. Continued researchshould also examine other aspects of well-being.

An important issue that the present data do not speak to is the role of selection in family

structure. Whether children live with or without their fathers is not determined randomly.

Rather, parents usually select this status (though it may also be imposed by imprisonment,

a call to military service, or involuntary death), and characteristics that affect family

structure may independently affect child development and child well-being. For example,

when a parent (or both parents) displays many disagreeable traits such as neuroticism or

poor impulse control, the relationship between the parents is more likely to dissolve (Kelly

and Conley 1987). This diminishes the likelihood that the father will live with the child,because mothers take custody of children more often than fathers do. The same charac-

teristics that reduce the likelihood of the father living with the child may also affect child



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a change in family structure if the mother throws him out, but in this scenario the father’s

absence is not responsible for diminished child well-being. Therefore, lower child well-

being among children living without fathers could be a result of factors that contributed to

the family structure, rather than a result of father absence. Furthermore, it is even likely

that children’s well-being affects their fathers’ residence status to some degree. Reichmanet al. (2003) report that ‘‘having a child with poor health decreases the level of commit-

ment in the parents’ relationship,’’ increasing the risk of single-parenthood. These com-

plexities of selection for family structure should be borne in mind when considering

associations between child well-being and family living arrangements. They imply that any

detrimental effect of father absence on child well-being may be even smaller than the

association observed in this paper’s analyses.

It is not the intent of this paper to suggest that fathers are not important to their children,

but the multivariate analyses suggest that children can, and often do, develop successfully

in spite of father absence, provided that they are not otherwise disadvantaged . Of course,

being otherwise disadvantaged in a father’s absence is common; many families are poorbecause of a father’s absence. But this does not mean that father absence per se harms

children. It means, instead, that father absence is one of many factors that sometimes put

children at a disadvantage, often indirectly by causing other problems such as poverty. By

the indicators of well-being studied here, the absence of a father, per se, is associated with

some disadvantages, but not with strong ones. In these data, father absence appears no

more harmful than other factors such as low income or low levels of parental education,

suggesting a degree of exaggeration in public discourse about father absence.

Acknowledgements This project was funded in part by the U.S. Department of Education under contractsRN95127001 and ED-05-CO-0044. The content of this article does not necessarily reflect the views orpolicies of the U.S. Department of Education. The paper was written while the author was employed by theAmerican Institutes for Research. A version was presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Researchon Child Development, Atlanta, GA, in 2005. Acknowledgements are due to Sandy Eyster, Jerry West, andKristin Flanagan for helpful comments on an earlier draft and to Alexa Van Brunt for research assistance.

Appendix: Variables in the Analysis

Resident father status. The adult respondent indicated whether there is a biological-, step-,

adoptive-, or foster-father living in the child’s household.

Sex. The child’s sex.

Grade. Grade level in school from kindergarten to grade 12. Home-schooled and

ungraded students are included if a grade equivalent was reported.

Race/ethnicity. Race is reported as White, Black, or other categories. Hispanic ethnicity

is reported separately. The race/ethnicity variable is derived from these items and indicates

whether the child is White non-Hispanic, Black non-Hispanic, other non-Hispanic, or

Hispanic. Hispanics may be of any race.

Household income. Annual household income was reported in categories.

Parents’ educational attainment . This is the highest level of education achieved by any

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Mother’s age at child’s birth. The child’s mother’s age when the child was born. This is

calculated by taking the difference of the child’s age in years and the mother’s age in years

at the time of the interview and is therefore subject to rounding error. Also, in some cases

the mother is not the biological mother.

Child has ADHD. The respondent was asked, ‘‘Does [child] have attention deficitdisorder, ADD, or ADHD?’’

Child ever repeated a grade. The respondent indicated whether or not the child ever

repeated a grade level (was held back) in school.

Child enjoys school. This is based on the respondent’s answer to the question, ‘‘Please

tell me whether you strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree with the following

statements…. [Child] enjoys school.’’

Child ever suspended or expelled from school. This is derived from the respondent’s

answers to three yes-or-no questions. It is coded yes if the answer to any question was

affirmative, and otherwise coded no. ‘‘Has [child] had an out-of-school suspension?’’

‘‘Has [child] had an in-school suspension, not counting detentions?’’ ‘‘Has [child] everbeen expelled?’’

A parent attends school meetings. This is based on the respondent’s report. It indicates

whether a parent has ‘‘Attended a general school meeting, for example, an open house, a

back-to-school night or a meeting of a parent-teacher organization?’’

A parent attends school events. This is based on the respondent’s report. It indicates

whether any parent has ‘‘Attended a school or class event, such as a play, sports event, or

science fair because of (child)?’’

A parent volunteers at school. The respondent’s report indicates whether any parent has

‘‘Acted as a volunteer at the school or served on a committee?’’ A parent attends teacher conference. The respondent’s report indicates if a parent has

‘‘Gone to a regularly scheduled parent-teacher conference with (child’s) teacher?’’

A parent has done school fundraising. The respondent’s report indicates if a parent has

‘‘Participated in fundraising for the school?’’

Child’s grades. The respondent indicated whether the child receives mostly As, mostly

Bs, mostly Cs, or mostly Ds or below.

Involvement index. See main text.

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Children Living Without Their Fathers: Population Estimates and Indicators of Educational Well-being