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Second, to account for the universally observed sex difference in delinquency, we controlled for the sex of the child. To construct the variable type of single-parent family, we first checked whether the children were born to a single parent, and assigned these children to the third category of single-parent families living in a single-parent family due to being born to a single parent. If this was not the case, we checked whether one of their parents had passed away between birth and age 11, and assigned these children to the second category of single-parent families living in a single-parent family due to a parental death. In case this did not happen, we checked whether their biological parents had been separated between birth and age 11, and assigned these children to the first category of single-parent families living in a single-parent family due to a parental separation., The dependent variable was based on recorded criminal behavior of the adolescents as registered by the Dutch National Police (see Table 1A for an overview of the items about juvenile delinquency). Being born to a single parent showed the largest effects (OR = 1.91, 95% CI [1.86, 1.96]), followed by having separated parents (OR = 1.64, 95% CI [1.61, 1.67]) and having one deceased biological parent before age 12 (OR = 1.62, 95% CI [1.54, 1.70]). Juby, H., & Farrington, D. P. (2001). This hypothesis is only partially confirmed, because sons growing up with biological mothers (compared to sons growing up with biological fathers) did show a higher likelihood to engage in juvenile delinquency. Berg, L., Rostila, M., Arat, A., & Hjern, A. We chose to use the term single-parent family, but we are aware of the sensitivities regarding this type of wording. This is of high societal relevance, not only because the victims of delinquency suffer injuries, losses, and other harms (Campagna & Zaykowski, 2020), but also because criminal behavior is associated with negative life outcomes to the juvenile committing delinquent acts, such as a lower income (Apel & Sweeten, 2010), health problems (Massoglia, 2008), and a lower well-being and a higher probability of criminal involvement as an adult (Gilman et al., 2015). Journal of Family Psychology, 15(3), 355. https://doi.org/10.1037//0893-3200.15.3.355, Amato, P. R., & Cheadle, J. E. (2008). (2019) on the effects of experiencing a parental death during childhood showed an increased risk of violent crime in adolescents. We did not distinguish between married and cohabiting parents. Although these experiences all result in single-parent families, they are associated with different processes and may have differential consequences for delinquent behavior. (2022). There are many instances throughout the United States where this traditional family structure is not found. The BVH replaced the HKS, and it comprises a more elaborate list of offenses than the HKS system (see Table 1A for an overview of the types of crime in both datasets). The other hypotheses about how the differences between single-parent families and the sex of the parent the children live with are related to juvenile delinquency, resulted in mixed outcomes with regard to theories, previous studies, and the present study. Effects of Fatherless Families on Crime Rates - Marripedia Meta's new AI is being used to create sex chatbots - The Washington Post The sex of the biological parent the adolescent lived with during the year(s) of living in a single-parent family was also included as an independent variable. A logistic regression model was estimated to establish the relation between the age of the children when the single-parent family was constituted and juvenile delinquency, in comparison with children living with both biological parents. These two explanations are hypothetical and require further exploration. Children growing up in a single-parent family have higher risk of In this paper, we attempt to unpack the relationship between criminal behavior of adolescents and growing up in a single-parent family by distinguishing differential characteristics of single-parent families in the Netherlands. Google Scholar, Ainsworth, M. D. S., & Bowlby, J. The HKS was dismantled in 2014. Broken homes and crime: differential effects of parental separation, parental decease, and being born to a single parent on the criminal involvement in offspring . Retrieved January 5, 2022, from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/12/12/u-s-children-more-likely-than-children-in-other-countries-to-live-with-just-one-parent/, Pogarsky, G., Lizotte, A. J., & Thornberry, T. P. (2003). (2019). However, children born to a single parent showed the highest level of delinquency. General strain theory (Agnew, 2006) suggests that delinquent behavior is affected by the strain caused by a relative lack of resources, which is more common in single-parent households. First, children from single-parent families are more likely to become involved in criminal activity. Correlation and Causation: Single Mothers and Violent Crime SEO Economisch Onderzoek. The seventh factor is the age of the biological mother at the birth of the child, as children born to younger mothers compared to children born to older mothers are more prone to general delinquency, violence, and arrest (e.g., Pogarsky et al., 2003). Next to this, the likelihood to engage in juvenile delinquency at a higher age of the children during the start of a single-parent family is also substantially higher compared to children growing up with two biological parents. of Justice, Sept. 1988) 85% of all youths in prison come from fatherless homes - 20 times the average. The current study thus adds to the existing literature by examining the relationship between criminal behavior during adolescence and (1) how single-parent families were constituted (by parental separation, parental decease, or being born to a single parent), (2) the age of the children when the different types of single-parent families were constituted, and (3) the distinction between children growing up with their biological father or biological mother in the different types of single-parent families. In the Netherlands, it is possible for two people of the same sex to both become the legal parents of a child. Juby and Farrington (2001) reported a higher risk of juvenile delinquency when the parental disruption occurred from 0 to 4 years old, compared to when it occurred from 5 to 9 years old (although the risk again increased between ages 10 and 14). (2016). Although most children in Western countries are raised by both of their biological parents, a large minority grows up without their biological father or biological mother. Moreover, we did not find the expected difference in delinquency between children who experienced parental separation and children having one deceased biological parent. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 36(2), 329341. In real life, compared to married parents, single parents tend to be poorer (because there is not a second earner in the family) and less well-educated (in part because early childbearing. Sex differences in the effects of family structure on childrens aggressive behavior. Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, 45, 405429. However, it was still considered best for young children to spend a lot of time with their primary caregiver (e.g., only from age5 onwards, children were recommended to stay overnight at the other parents house). Most of the estimates for the control variables included in all models were in line with expectations from the literature (see Appendix for all tables comprising the results including the control variables). Because the sample includes multiple siblings from the same families, these siblings have common unmeasured household characteristics. Because . Seventh, we hypothesized that the sex of the biological parent in a single-parent family would depend on the sex of the child to increase the likelihood to engage in juvenile delinquency (H3d). The Consequences of Fatherlessness - National Center for Fathering This would imply that the sex of the parent is a stronger predictor of juvenile delinquency than the age of the child during the disruption. https://doi.org/10.1086/678081, Gilman, A. It is well-established in the empirical literature (e.g., Amato, 2001; Kroese et al., 2021) as well as hypothesized by several criminological theories (e.g., general strain theory and social control theory; Agnew, 2006; Hirschi, 1969) that growing up in a single-parent family and juvenile delinquency are related. The sixth factor is the country of birth of the childrens biological parents, because several studies showed incongruent results regarding the relation between ethnic minority youths and crime rates (e.g., Rima et al., 2019). The Real Root Causes of Violent Crime: The Breakdown of Marriage The first factor is parental crime, because several studies find a positive correlation between parental crime and juvenile delinquency (e.g., Besemer et al., 2017). Facts On Unmarried Parents in the U.S. | Pew Research Center https://doi.org/10.1177/002214650804900105. https://doi.org/10.1080/1068316X.2020.1774589, Larmuseau, M. H., Claerhout, S., Gruyters, L., Nivelle, K., Vandenbosch, M., Peeters, A., van den Berg, P., Wenseleers, T., & Decorte, R. (2017). Do children in two-parent families do better? - BBC News (2019) found an increased risk of violent crime after experiencing a parental death, it is possible that the family crisis model is not valid, or is no longer valid. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734016811402495, Van der Wiel, R., & Kooiman, N. (2019). Moreover, a son growing up with only a mother due to a parental separation compared to growing up with only a father due to a parental separation, significantly increased the chance that the son became a suspect of delinquent behavior. The existing literature mostly confirms the expected relation between experiencing the constitution of a single-parent family at a younger age and a higher level of juvenile delinquency. https://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12197. The conducive effect of family disruption on youth crime: the main hypothesis If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. Adolescence, 22(86), 305. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2005.06.003, Eurostat (2019). https://doi.org/10.1300/J087v39n01_07, Ram, B., & Hou, F. (2005). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2006.11.015. Studies have shown that children raised by single mothers are no more likely to commit crimes than children raised by two-parent households. We defined this variable as whether none of the biological parents, one of the biological parents, or two of the biological parents have been a suspect of a criminal act before the child turned 12 years old, independent of the number of crimes and the severity of the crime(s). The third factor is the income of the household. Multivariate regression models were used in the analysis. Financial support was provided by the Amsterdam Law and Behavior Institute (A-LAB), the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR), and the Open Data Infrastructure for Social Science and Economic Innovations (ODISSEI). volume7,pages 596622 (2021)Cite this article. The Dutch National Police provided data about juvenile delinquency from 2005 to 2017 by means of the Basic Facility for Law Enforcement (Basisvoorziening Handhaving [BVH]) and data about parental crime from 1996 to 2014 by means of the Police Offenders Identification System (Herkenningsdienst Systeem [HKS]). Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 27(3), 206214. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. The results, reported in Table 2, demonstrate that having lived with one biological parent before age 12 (compared to having lived with two biological parents before age 12) significantly increased the odds that the child became a suspect of delinquent behavior during adolescence (OR = 1.70, 95% CI [1.67, 1.73]). Because some family structures are relatively rare, such as children living in single-father families and children being born into a single-parent family, researchers had problems with finding enough respondents for their studies (Demuth & Brown, 2004). Children living without any biological parents were excluded from the analyses (N = 6,792). Third, population register data only uses officially registered information regarding delinquency, while not all delinquent acts are registered by the police, resulting in an underestimation of the number of delinquent behaviors (Groot et al., 2007). Since a study by Juby and Farrington (2001) found contradictory results depending on the method used to investigate the differences between parental separation and parental death, and a recent study by Berg et al. (2014) noted that growing up in a family with the same-sex parent reduces the level of delinquency of the children. However, contrasting Bowlbys attachment theory, the maternal hypothesis, and the equality hypothesis, our results suggested that growing up with only a biological mother significantly increased the chance that the child has been a suspect of a criminal act. Again, as mentioned above, this might be explained by paternal closeness, since both sons and daughters show a lower likelihood to engage in juvenile delinquency when the closeness to their father is high (Johnson, 1987; Yoder et al., 2016), most likely also occurring in single-father families. A total of 1,296,652 children were included in the analyses. Incarceration Rates and Single Motherhood - George Fox University The results (see Table 2) show that having separated parents before age 12, having one deceased biological parent before age 12, or being born to a single parent (compared to having lived with two biological parents before age 12) all significantly increased the odds that the child became a suspect of delinquent behavior. By analyzing longitudinal population register data from of the Netherlands, the current study sought to expand existing knowledge on the relationship between growing up in single-parent families and delinquency during adolescence (ages 1218). The fifth factor is whether or not the single parent started to live together with a new partner. Psychology, Crime & Law, 27(1), 6175. The second factor is the sex of the child, because boys have typically been responsible for the majority of youth crimes (Peterson et al., 2007; Messerschmidt, 2013). The type of aggression and hostility demonstrated by a future criminal often is foreshadowed in unusual aggressiveness as early as age five or six. The children can be registered at only one address in the Dutch population register, yet other types of living situations are possible as well.