New Research Shows Boys Desperately Need Fathers

The “growing minority” of “floundering” young men is in large part due to a rising number of fatherless or non-intact families, according to recent findings that the Institute for Family Studies published on June 13.

“The bottom line is that on many fronts, too many young men are not successfully transitioning into adulthood today,” the Institute’s June 13 article states, noting that previous research had failed to account for family dynamics in its attempt to account for the negative trend.

Citing data from two nationally representative studies, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1997) and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, researchers found that young men raised by their two married biological parents are nearly 20 percentage points more likely to attend college rather than to end up in jail compared with respondents from non-intact families.

“Strikingly,” the researchers note, “this is the only group where graduating college is more likely than prison/jail.”

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“Meanwhile, the statistic flips for young men from non-intact families,” the researchers continued. “All non-intact categories in this group are associated with young men being more likely to go to prison than graduate college in the Add Health survey.”

The researchers also accounted for factors such as race and age when collecting data. However, they found that “family structure is more strongly associated with incarceration and college graduation than race for young men across both datasets.”

Beyond graduation or incarceration, the researchers note that family structure contributes to a number of other life outcomes, such as personality differences or even income.

“In a world where young men are increasingly failing to thrive,” the researchers emphasized the importance of family structures, concluding that “any effort to revive the falling fortunes of young men should put family at the forefront.”

LifeNews Note: Madalaine Elhabbal writes for CatholicVote, where this column originally appeared.

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