[Image] [Image] Father Facts Wade F. Horn, Ph.D. National Fatherhood Initiative ------------------------------------------------------------ Fatherless Children Children who were part of the "post-war generation" could expect to grow up with two biological parents who were married to each other. Eighty percent did. Today, only about 50 percent of children will spend their entire childhood in an intact family. Source: David Popenoe, "American Family Decline, 1960-1990: A Review and Appraisal," Journal of Marriage and the Family 55 (August 1993); see also Larry Bumpass, "WhatŐs Happening to the Family? Interactions Between Demographic and Institutional Change," Demography 27, no.4 (1990): 483-498. Fifty percent of all white children and seventy-five percent of all black children born in the last two decades are likely to live for some portion of their childhood with only their mothers. Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Divorce, Child Custody, and Child Support, Current Population Reports, Series P23-84, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1979 see also L.L. Bumpass and J.A. Sweet, "ChildrenŐs Experience in Single-Parent Families: Implications of Cohabitation and Marital Transitions," Family Planning Perspectives 21 (1989): 256-260. White children born in the 1950-1954 period spent only 8% of their childhood with just one parent; black children spent 22%. Of those born in 1980, by one estimate, white children can be expected to spend 31% of their childhood years with one parent, and black children 59%. Source: David Popenoe, Life Without Father, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1996, 23. [Image] [Image] In 1990, 7.2 percent of AmericaŐs children lived in neighborhoods where more than half of all families with children were female-headed. In these neighborhoods the majority of working-age men are unemployed for most of the year. Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States 1990, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1990: 459. Half of all U.S. children born today will spend half their childhood in a family headed by a woman. Source: Irwin Garfinkel and Sara S. McLanahan, Single Mothers and Their Children: A New American Dilemma, Washington, DC, Urban Institute, 1989. Twenty-six percent of absent fathers live in a different state than their children. Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Brief of the United States 1991, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, October 1991. As of June 1994, there were an estimated 778,761 dads with children under the age of 18 in prison. Source: U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Correctional Populations in the United States, 1994, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington DC, 1995. [Previous | Table of Contents | Next ] (c) 1998, National Fatherhood Initiative. All rights reserved. Father Facts 3 is available in softcover from the National Fatherhood Initiative. NFI Resource Catalog Price: US $8.00. National Fatherhood Initiative 101 Lake Forest Boulevard, Suite 360 Gaithersburg, MD 20877 phone: (301) 948-0599 fax: (301) 948-4325 email: info@fatherhood.org web: www.fatherhood.org [-] Printer-Friendly Version [-] See Related Resources ------------------------------------------------------------ copyright (c) 1995-2002 Leadership U. All rights reserved. This site is part of the Telling the Truth Project. Updated: 4 May 2002