My last post introduced the idea that the absence of fathers in U.S. homes is a significant problem. Today we will define what we mean by the term absent father and we will discuss the prevalence of absent fathers. The definition of an absent father depends a bit on the specific study or source of data. In general, when we use the term absent father, we are speaking of fathers who are physically absent from the child's primary home. This includes fathers who have only joint custody of their children.
A caveat before we continue with our series of posts on absent fathers: the statistics that will be quoted are a few years old. The exact numbers are almost certainly a bit different today than the numbers I will quote. The reason for this is two-fold. First, it takes time for researchers to assemble and interpret all the data they collect, so information is a bit out of date by the time it is ever published. Second, my acquisition of the data I will present took place several years ago and I have not recently searched out current statistics that supersede the ones I will present in these posts.
On to the statistics. As of 2004, approximately 24.7 million U.S. children (36.3%) lived absent from their biological fathers. In 1997, according to Gallup, 33% of all U.S. teens and 43% of urban teens lived away from their father. Nearly half of all children from disrupted families have not seen their fathers in the past year. Nearly 1 in 5 children in female-headed households have not seen their fathers in five years. Finally, 1 out of every 6 kids in America is a step-child.
From 1960 to 2000, the proportion of children living with just one parent increased from 9% to 28% over that 40 year span. When the statistics are broken down by race, results become even more alarming. As of the year 2000, 20.9% of all white children lived in single-parent homes. At the same time, 31.8% of all Hispanic children and 57.7% of all black children were living in single-parent homes. The reasons for the racial differences are debatable, but what is clear is that this is a problem that is not limited to a single race.
The problem of fathers either shirking their responsibility or being prevented from fulfilling their responsibility as fathers in the United States is enormous. We will soon examine why this is a big deal and explore the impact that fatherlessness has on children.
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