Father absence
Parental separation affects a child's development. Early parental divorce has been associated with greater internalising and externalising behaviour problems in the child, while divorce later in childhood or adolescence may dampen academic performance. Children of unmarried parents tend to suffer greater emotional and social difficulties than others do.
Whilst father absence mainly results from parental divorce and separation, other factors such as family poverty, developmental difficulties have been associated with father absence, the effects of which have been explained by various theoretical approaches.
Difficulties associated with father absence
General problems
Despite limited agreement among researchers regarding the exact significance of fathering, fathers are traditionally deemed a provider of protection and support for the child's development. Through a number of pathways, father absence may influence child behaviour, especially in early and middle childhood. These include a decline in household income and ineffective parenting arising from continued conflicts and psychological distress.Contributing Factors to the Absentee Father
Studies show that there is a direct correlation between a lack of a father figure in the household and negative impacts on the development of young men and women across cultures. Nonetheless, we tend to overlook the causal factors that contribute to fatherlessness outside of correlational research. It is important to note that Family disruption, specifically within communities of color, is not a random event. Researchers argue that one cannot let alone observe fatherlessness under a single variable effect: translated to mean that there is not only one single variable to being an absentee father that affect the maturity and growth of the child. Researchers have also begun to cross reference their research to the multitude of Literature on Fatherlessness finding a third variable that influences child wellbeing: raceThe effect on children of an absent parent following divorce
The issue of divorce is a crucial aspect in the society in relations to the life of children. The separation of a married couple due to irreconcilable differences is a matter that is common in the society and its effects on children is negative. It will impact negatively on the education of the children, health conditions of the children, children's relation with their parents as well as the future well-being of the children. Therefore, the area relating to the effects of divorce on children is significant for academic inquiry. It makes sense to research on this particular area since it will help learn on the effects that comes with divorce, how children adjust and adapt to divorce and how they are being treated. It is also worth to mention that, parents who divorce have their minds lingering on how their actions will affect their children's happiness as well as health.Behavioural and mental health difficulties
In regard to the effects of father absence, a recent British study assessed child problem behaviour in over 15,000 families using the clinical cut-offs of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, controlling for household factors such as resources, parental mental health and inter-parental relationship. The study found that father absence at a given age, similar to poverty and parental psychological distress, predicted a high probability of the child scoring above the cut-off score for total difficulties two years later. Likewise, father absence predicted several specific difficulties including borderline personality disorder, severe hyperactivity and abnormal emotional problems. Reciprocally, a child's severe externalising and social during their preschool years were also associated with a greater probability of the father being absent two years later. The authors concluded that father absence seemed to be more of a cause than a consequence of child problem behaviour.Through direct interaction, fathers’ involvement in children's development has a positive influence on their social, behavioural and psychological outcomes. In general, engagement of a fatherly figure reduces the frequency of behavioural problems and delinquency in sons and psychological problems in daughters, all the while facilitating children's cognitive development.
Theoretical approaches
Evolutionary approach
postulates that women may invest more in their offspring than the opposite gender due to a slower rate of reproduction in females. Some theorists add that the assured maternal relatedness to one's offspring may also make women invest more than men. This is because some men may have variable paternity confidence that the child is his offspring.Psychodynamic approach
The psychodynamic approach posits that behaviour is motivated by basic needs, and drives and is sometimes shaped by unconscious childhood experiences. It is implicated that for a child to develop a “normal” gender identity, they will have to be raised in a conventional family where there is a father and a mother. Freud believed that being parented by a single mother could confuse the child's identity or lead them to become homosexual. Father absence may hinder the son's acquisition of the traditional masculine role, as he is not able to model his own behaviour and attitude on his fathers’. Along similar lines, sons with absent fathers could have confused gender identities – if the son was separated from his father by age four, he would be less assertive, less involved in sport, less masculine than other boys and more dependent on his peers. Nevertheless, findings of certain empirical studies on psychosexual gender identification have been deemed contradictory and inconclusive. A number of studies have highlighted such negative consequences of the two-parent heterosexual household on children. Contrarily, others have pointed out that being reared in lesbian and single-parent households where the father was absent did not affect the psychosexual development of children, despite higher aggressiveness and submissiveness and lower assertiveness.Biological approach
Genes and hormones may account for the tendency of fathers to be absent. Certain DNA patterns have been shown to affect an individual's degree of fidelity and investment in their offspring. In particular, a study in prairie voles indicates that the gene AVPR1A affects the activity of vasopressin receptors in brain regions and thus predicts less cheating on their partners. Similar to oxytocin, the hormone vasopressin can facilitate trust, empathy and social bonding. Injection of vasopressin in polygamous montane voles significantly increased their likelihood of becoming monogamous. This may in turn decrease their likelihood of being an absent father.A meta-analysis based on 56 twin and adoption studies totalling over 200,000 families has revealed that genetic makeup significantly affects the individual's parenting behaviour. Genes in the father reliability predict up to 40% of his positive or negative emotions towards his children. In this sense, genes contribute to a father's liking or repulsion for his children, the latter of which may result in father absence.
Gender differences
There is mixed empirical evidence on the relative impact of father absence on the development of male and female offspring. A recent study in rural Ethiopia, where father absence could mean a significant drop in household income, revealed a considerable difference between the wellbeing of male and female offspring. In particular, the author found that a male infant's risk of dying per month was doubled if the biological father was absent – a 30% greater risk than that for females. For female infants, father absence was associated with a lower risk of dying, as well as higher nutritional status. That is to say, father absence was only a statistical predictor of infant death only for male infants. Such a gender difference has been observed despite a strong cultural preference for sons in the area. On the other hand, in developed countries such as the United Kingdom where father absence may not inflict as much harm on the family's income, the effects of father absence are not noticeably gendered.The Psychological Impacts on Men
When a young man matures without the biological male role model there are results in violent reactions to stress and emotions, resistance and hate towards authority, aggression, early rates of sexual encounters, transferences of moms negative talk about dad, and pressured ideologies to become the breadwinner.The Psychological Impacts on Woman
Commonly agreed across Authors within literature on Fatherhood is the idea that “A girl’s relationship with her father serves as the model for all her relationships with men in her life, romantic and otherwise…” Many studies conducted produce the same result: that the absence of a father in a daughters life leads to increased promiscuity and sexualized activity. Most Famous being Ellis et al. study “Does Father Absence Place Daughters at Special Risk for Early Sexual Activity and Teenage Pregnancy?” Ellis provides a greater focus on the timing of father absence in their daughters life; but still the results of promiscuity prove contingent on the father being present. From here, researchers have identified a commonality of 5 factors that work to explain how fatherlessness affects development in women, psychologically.→ A 5 Factors approach
- The “Un- Factor”: Where first ideas of being “unworthy” and / or “unlovable” get developed in young woman. They begin to believe these things, creating a self fulfilled prophecy. One where they believe they are unworthy and thus only accept and attract love from men who fulfill their self thoughts of unworthiness about themselves.
- The “Triple Fears Factor”: The three commonly identified fears shows fears of rejection, fears of abandonment and fears of commitment. Each fear initially identifiable in the early stages of life without a father. The fatherless woman can’t help but know the pain of being left. The whole of a father leaves a woman in her maturity automatically feeling abandoned and “not good enough”, bereaved uncertainty around what it means to be committed and received vs rejected. “Unfortunately being abandoned feels familiar and ‘right’... and yet, I am terrified of being abandoned.” “Usually what these person will do is to play it safe to protect themselves; they will not put themselves in situations that are going to be intimate. They will be highly social, sexual, intellectual, but not intimate.”
- The “Sexual Healing Factor”: This factor is most commonly identified across woman of multiple age ranges and cultures for sexual expression tends to serve as primary indications of fatherlessness in a woman. The Sexual Healing Factor in girls and woman is primarily about control. The behavior exist amongst a spectrum ranging from promiscuity to a complete and utter avoidance to intimacy. In both extremes the girl is able to maintain a sense of control, deciding exactly what sex will look like for them.
“She wants to be close but is afraid, she determined that she cannot be intimate unless she is in control. She wants to be the one to decide the positions for making love; she wants to be the one to decide when or if she and her mate will get physical. She decides if she will have an orgasm, regardless of how long the man may perform hoping to bring her to climax. Because all of this places her in control, she does not confuse love and intercourse. She presents an impenetrable, cool, or unaffected demeanor. But these are merely defenses.”
- The “Over Factor”: More explicitly defined as overeating, achieving etc but to the point where it can be identified as obsessive and addictive.
- The “RAD Factor” Most commonly expressed as Rage, Anger, and Depression. Three emotions that have a tendency to be expressed or are identified as contributing to the emotional state of young woman without fathers.
Statistics
United States
Based on the 2018 U.S. Census Bureau 11 million single parent households, 80% of them are fatherless, breaking down to 1 in every 4 children born; totaling a percentage of 81.5%. Out of that 81.5% that were raised by single mothers:34 % were poor⅔ of theses families were white. ⅓ were black and ⅓ were Hispanic defined. Not taking into account the 53% of American Indians and Alaskan Natives as well as the 17% Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders children recorded within these Single Parented homes. The US Department of Health and Human Services reports that the average experience of the American teenager includes now living in the absence of their father. This leads to multiple negative impacts on youth:
26.8 % were jobless the entire year
30.3 % suffered from food insecurity
85% are reported to have behavioral issues
71% of high school dropouts and teen moms come from fatherless homes - 9 times the national average
85% of all children who show behavior disorders come from fatherless homes – 20 times the national average
85% of youth in prison come from fatherless homes - 20 times the national average
63% of youth suicides are of children who come from fatherless homes. - 5 times the national average
Specific negative impacts
Early pubertal timing – precocious puberty – is associated with negative outcomes in both genders. Early maturing girls have been found to be at risk for teenage pregnancy, drinking and weight problems, and giving birth to low birth weight infants. Early maturing boys are at risk for sexual promiscuity and delinquency and testicular and prostate cancer. Individual difference in pubertal timing may be influenced by weight, physical activity and genetics.Menarche
A central event of female puberty – menarche – is associated with father absence. According to the evolutionary explanation, an unstable home environment discourages a long-term mating life history, leading girls to adopt a short-term reproductive strategy, such as early menarche. This is because they perceive resources they have as scarce and, possibly, their lifespan to be shorter, under the influence of father absence. An early menarche can increase the chance of fertility, while other short-term reproductive strategies can diversify the genes inherited in offspring. These could lift up a higher success rate of rearing children to adolescence. Moreover, the stress of father absence prompts girls to develop a variety of internalising disorders, such as bulimia and depression, which may lower the person's metabolism leading to excessive weight gain which precipitates early menarche. A study shows that there are fewer monitored meals in the father-absent household. Having meals in the family is arguably more beneficial to children than is eating alone, as the former lowers the chance of obesity.However, it has been disputed whether the environmental stress of father absence stimulates weight gain, and thus accelerates early puberty. Likewise, the stress arisen from the absence of mother has been shown to have little influence on the child's body weight. Since mother absence does not predict weight gain in children, it seems that the increase in the child's body weight observed is due to the isolated genetic influence of an absent father, rather than the global environmental stress cause by the absence of either parent. This is possibly because in ancestral times the survival rate of children with mother being absent was extremely low. A specialised mechanism to deal with mother absence has never been developed.
In addition, recent findings seem to regard genes, rather than the environment, as the mechanism underlying the positive correlation between high body mass index and earlier first menarche onset. Androgen receptor gene may predispose a father to impulsive and externalising behaviours and his offspring to early puberty. The essentialness of androgen receptor to female fertility and ovary development has been proven by rodent studies.
Sexual behaviour
Father absence in a household can result in children having earlier average ages of first sexual intercourse than those raised in father present households. There is also the effect of increased rates of teenage pregnancy. Some evolutionary theories propose that early childhood is vital for encoding information that shapes future reproductive strategies in regulating physical and motivational pathways of sexual behaviour. Conflicting and stressful parental relationships can lead children to believe that resources are limited, people are untrustworthy, and relationships are opportunistic. As they replicate their parents’ mating-oriented reproductive behaviour, they tend to have multiple sexual partners and erratic relationships. Children implicitly and explicitly model their sexual attitudes and behaviours on their parents, see engagement in non-marital sex as normative. Father absence however can be a byproduct of initial social and economic strain within the household. The timing of first intercourse can be heritable - shorter alleles of the X-linked androgen receptor gene has been associated with aggression, impulsivity, high number of sexual partners, divorce in males and earlier ages of physical maturation in females.Mechanisms to balance father absence
Matrilineal support
A study in Ethiopia in 2008 found that despite being poorer overall, widowed and divorced women are on average 2.4 kg heavier than women whose children's fathers are present. Widowed and divorced mothers as well as their daughters are reported to have substantially improved nutritional status which could be explained by them having greater access to the mother's relatives. Furthermore, proximity to a mother's relatives can dramatically improve female children's height for age, an indicator of good nutrition. Women who return to their village of birth following marital dissolution are seen to benefit from extra matrilateral kin support,Presence of a stepfather
In light of certain research, father absence can be disadvantageous; certain evidence suggests stepfather presence does not reduce these disadvantages but in fact has a worsening effect on such issues. For example, the Cinderella effect, which refers to the observation that stepchildren are at a dramatically increased risk of physical abuse and homicide than children living with their biological parents. Although there researchers have found a negative relationship between stepmothers and food expenditure, this effect is not observed with stepfathers and their stepchildren. Ellis and Garber and Ellis suggest that stepfather presence is a better predictor of age of menarche than father absence, as it indicates lower quality paternal investment. In accordance with their findings, results show that girls raised in families with stepfathers exhibit a significantly earlier age of menarche than girls raised without stepfathers.Relative to other groups, children with a constantly absent biological father but a stepfather present reported more frequent incidences of sexual intercourse, as well as an earlier onset of sexual behaviour. The mean age of children with their biological father absent or partially absent is approximately 15. A higher percentage of children with a constantly absent biological father reported having sexual intercourse than those in the partially absent group. Those with a stepfather present and those with a biological father always absent have the earliest first time experiences of sexual intercourse at on average 15.11 years old, whereas children without a stepfather or their biological father partially absent at the age of 15.38 experience their first encounter of sexual intercourse. The effect of having a partially absent biological father with stepfather absence and the effect both stepfather or biological father absence are the same. This study indicated that the presence of a stepfather is not compensating to the disadvantages of a biological father being absent. In some situations, it can cause an even bigger negative effect on children.