Hamilton County Facts and Figures
• There are 120,878 households in Hamilton County: 70.83 % are married couple families; 24.62 % are female-headed families; and 3.75 % are male-headed families. Hamilton County Health Department 1997
• 38.7 percent of live births in Hamilton County in 1998 were to single mothers. Hamilton County Health Department
• The national average for births to unmarried women is 30 percent; the Tennessee average is 34.9 percent (1998). Hamilton County Health Department
• 33 percent of the population in Hamilton County has been divorced; the national average is 22 percent. U.S. Census Data
• 79% of Hamilton County residents surveyed agree that “the most significant family, or social problem facing America is the physical absence of the father from the home.” This is up from 69% in 1992. 1996 Gallup Poll on Fathering
The Plight of Fatherlessness
• Nearly 40% of children in our country will go to bed each night without their biological father in the home. Booth 1991
• Approximately 29% of white and 66% of black children do not live with their biological father. National Center for Health Statistics
• Nearly one-fourth (24%) of America’s children live in mother-only families. U.S. Census Bureau 1996
• By the time they are 18 years old approximately 60% of children will have spent part of their childhood in single-parent families. Dryfoos, J.G. Adolescents at Risk: Prevalence and Prevention, 1990
• 4 out of 10 cohabiting couples have children present and only 4 of 10 of those couples marry. Cohabiting couples experience a 50% higher divorce rate. National Center for Fathering
Father Time
• The average father spends less than 10 minutes a day one on one with his child. John P. Robinson, et al. The Rhythm of Everyday Life: How Soviet and American Citizens Use Time. Boulder Press 1988
• Of children living with their mothers – whether as a result of non-marital birth or divorce – 35% never see their fathers, and 24% see their fathers less than once a month. Seltzer, J.A. “Children’s Contact with Absent Parents,” Journal of Marriage and Family 1988
• Children with involved Dads are less susceptible to peer pressure, are more competent, more self-protective, more self-reliant and more ambitious. National Center for Public Policy Research
• In a 1991 survey, 75% of the men said they would trade rapid career advancement for a chance to leave more time open to their families. Dallas Morning News
Poverty
• Almost 75% of American children living in single-parent families will experience poverty before they turn 11 years old. Only 20% of children in two-parent families will do the same. The National Fatherhood Initiative
• “…The likelihood that a family would fall below the poverty line doubled during the first four month period of the father’s absence, increasing from 18.5% to 37.6%.” Duncan, Wayne Journal of Clinical and Child Psychology, 1994
Health
• Children who live away from their fathers are 4.3 times more likely to smoke cigarettes when they are teenagers are than children who live with their fathers. Stanton, W.R. (1994). Sociodemographic Characteristics of Adolescent Smokers. The International Journal of Addictions, 913-925.
• Children living with a never-married mother are more likely to have been treated for emotional problems. Remez, L., “Children Who Don’t Live with Both Parents Face Behavioral Problems,” Family Planning Perspectives 1992.
• Three out of four teenage suicides occur in households where a parent is absent. Elshtain, Jean Bethke, “Family Matters: The Plight of America’s Children.”
Children’s Sexual Development
• Compared with girls with intact nuclear families, girls who lost their fathers by divorce were overly responsive to males, were more likely to be sexually involved with males in adolescence, married younger, were pregnant more often before marriage, and became divorced or separated from their eventual husbands more frequently. Rekers, George, University of South Carolina School of Medicine
• 76% of teens said that their fathers were very or somewhat influential in their decision to have sex. Clements, Mark. Parade. February 2, 1997.
Crime
• “The likelihood that a young male will engage in criminal activity doubles if he is raised without a father and triples if he lives in a neighborhood with a high concentration of single-parent families.” M. Anne Hill and June O’Neill, Underclass Behaviors in the United States: Measurement and Analysis of Determinants, City University of New York, Baruch College 1993
• 72% of adolescent murderers, 60% of America’s rapists and 70% of long-term prison inmates grew up in homes without fathers. Dewey Cornell, “Characteristics of Adolescents Charged with Homicide,” Behavioral Sciences and the Law 1987: 11 –23. Nicholas Davidson, “Life Without Father,” Policy Review 1990
• 70% of juveniles in state reform institutions grew up in single or no-parent situations. Beck, Allen, Survey of Youth in Custody 1987.
• As of 1994, there were an estimated 778,661 dads with children below age 18 behind bars and an additional 105,500 dads with children over 18. National Center for Fathering
Education
• Fatherless children are twice as likely to drop out of school. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Center for Health Statistics, Survey on Child Health, Washington D.C. 1993
• Young children in single-mother families tend to have lower scores on verbal and math achievement tests. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Report to Congress on Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing, 1995.
• School children from divorced families are absent more, are more hostile, withdrawn and less popular than their peers from intact families. One-Parent Families and Their Children: The School’s Most Significant Minority.
Father Presence
• Studies reveal that even in high-crime inner-city neighborhoods, well over 90% of children from safe, stable, two-parent homes do not become delinquents. Richters, John, “Violent Communities, Family Choices, and Children’s Chances” Development and Psychopathology 1993
• Researchers have linked father presence with improved fetal and infant development. Father-child interaction was shown to promote a child’s physical well being, perceptual abilities and competency for relatedness with others, even at a young age. Krampe, E.M. “Father Presence and Family Formation,” Journal of Family Issues 1993.
• When both boys and girls are reared with involved fathers they demonstrate “a greater ability to take initiative and evidence self-control.” Pruett, K.D. The Nurturing Father 1987.
• A just released National Fatherhood Initiative analysis found that of the 102 prime-time network TV shows in 1998, only fifteen featured a father as a central character. Of these, the majority portrayed the father as uninvolved, incompetent or both. National Center for Public Policy Research
Research
