Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Retrospective Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 2008 Educational outcomes of children with absent- fathers: an examination of children with deceased fathers and children with fathers absent for other reasons compared with children with fathers present in a two-parent home Brandie Marie Ward Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at:https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd Part of theDevelopmental Psychology Commons, and theEducational Psychology Commons Recommended Citation Ward, Brandie Marie, "Educational outcomes of children with absent-fathers: an examination of children with deceased fathers and children with fathers absent for other reasons compared with children with fathers present in a two-parent home" (2008).Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 15289. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/15289 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Retrospective Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please [email protected]. Educational outcomes of children with absent-fathers: An examination of children with deceased fathers and children with fathers absent for other reasons compared with children with fathers present in a two-parent home by Brandie Marie Ward A thesis submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE Major: Human Development and Family Studies Program of Study Committee: Sedahlia Jasper Crase, Major Professor Craig Gundersen Cathy Hockaday Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 2008 Copyright © Brandie Marie Ward, 2008. All rights reserved. UMI Number: 1453105 UMI Microform1453105 Copyright2008 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. 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Box 1346 Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346 ii DEDICATION to my mother, Paula, who has been the strongest and most supportive person in my life, to Dr. Sedahlia Crase for being my never ending source of encouragement, to the friends I’ve made at Iowa State University who helped me create so many memories, to my graduate classmates in which we’ve shared in each other’s moments of joy and sadness, Thank you for all your support! iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT iv INTRODUCTION 1 LITERATURE REVIEW 4 Theoretical Framework 6 Defining Father Absence 7 Defining Educational Outcomes 12 Gender 15 Race 17 Time of Event 19 Parental Education 22 METHODOLOGY 25 Adolescent Health (Add Health) Data Set 25 Wave I 27 Wave II 28 Wave III 29 Sample Selection 32 Research Questions 34 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 36 Frequencies and Descriptive Analyses 36 Other Findings 50 LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH 56 CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS 60 APPENDIX A 63 APPENDIX B 64 APPENDIX C 65 APPENDIX D 66 APPENDIX E 67 APPENDIX F 68 APPENDIX G 69 REFERENCES 70 iv ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to examine the differences in educational outcomes for children with fathers absent due to death and those absent for other reasons. The nationally representative Adolescent Health data set was used to select 70 children with deceased fathers, 70 children with fathers who are alive but not living in the home, and 70 children with fathers residing in the home. Demographic variables and educational outcome variables were utilized from waves I and III; correlation and t test analyses were performed. In general, it was found that children without fathers for any reason completed a year less of school than children living with two parents. However, children with deceased fathers and children with fathers absent for other reasons did not differ significantly in the amount of education each completed. There was no association between the child’s age when the father died and the amount of education completed, but there was a small association between the length of time a child has been without a father because they died and their highest level of education. Children with fathers absent for other reasons were found to have lower rates of graduating high school and college when compared to children with two parents, while children with deceased fathers did not. Other findings indicated that both male children and African American children with fathers absent for other reasons had lower GPA scores than females or white children. Children from both groups (male and African American) completed more education as their mothers earned more income. Limitations of the study are considered with recommendations for future research. The study has implications for how mothers and others who work with children can prevent lowered educational outcomes for those with fathers absent due to death and those absent for other reasons. 1 INTRODUCTION Twenty years ago it was estimated that 50% of recently born and future cohorts of children would spend some time of their childhood in a single-parent household before they reached the age of 16 years (Bumpass, 1984). Although current trends have not quite matched this projection, rates of single-parent homes are still high at 33% of children under 18 currently residing in a one-parent home. According to 2006 estimates, over 12.9 million children were reported in single-parent homes with 10.4 million children living with single- mothers (U.S. Census Bureau, 2007). With such a large proportion of our society’s children experiencing a single-parent household, mostly in single-mother households, it is imperative to understand the effects growing up in a single-mother household with absent-fathers for any reason may have on the development and success of children. The current study considers the educational outcomes of children using a more intrapersonal rather than societal approach, thus the reason for focusing on biological fathers rather than including adopted or step-fathers. Income, socio-economic status, number of family members in the household, or current parental marital status, along with other dimensions which are all still very significant to study, were omitted from this study. Rather personal expectations and other descriptors were taken into account when examining the educational outcomes. This is due in part to the research studies finding lower psychological well-being in children in single-parent homes in addition to the limitations of the data. Also, the author was interested in understanding how her experience of losing a father to death was different or similar to others with deceased fathers and how the event of forever losing contact with a parent compares to those who have the chance for contact, whether or not it was utilized. 2 Researchers have found higher rates of depression (Hetherington, Cox, & Cox, 1985; Servaty, 2001), negative feelings (Carlson, 2006), behavioral difficulties (Astone & McLanahan, 1991) including youth incarceration (Harper & McLanahan, 2004) and delinquency (Carlson, 2006), and lower educational scores, attainment and success (Amato & Keith, 1991; Pong, Dronkers, & Thompson, 2003) in children from single-parent homes. The educational attainment and success outcomes of children from these homes are of particular interest for this study. Education is an important dimension because it affects many other areas of the child’s life such as future job prospects, income, dependence on governmental aid, poverty levels, and self-esteem. Although most research supports the finding that single-parent households are associated with lower educational outcomes in children overall, the majority of research studies have not divided single parenthood into different subgroups to examine how single parenthood differs when it resulted from the death of the father, divorce, or never marrying. A few studies suggest that children whose fathers have died have worse educational outcomes than children whose fathers are absent but still living (Jeynes, 2002). Other studies support the notion that children in divorced single-mother households perform lower on educational measures and have lower levels of educational success (Biblarz & Gottainer, 2000) than other forms of singleness. Although the results tend to lean towards lower educational outcomes for children with divorced mothers, it still remains open for further examination due to findings that suggest children with widowed mothers fare worse in terms of educational achievement. The purpose of this current study is to examine educational outcomes of children from different groups of mothers, particularly mothers whose children lost their biological 3 father due to death compared with mothers who are single for other reasons such as divorce, separation, and never marrying the child’s biological father. If there are differences between the groups (father absent due to death and father absent due to other reasons) it would be useful to understand how different contexts and demographic variables for father absence affect educational outcomes of children in each of the groups. In addition, this study will add to the literature pertaining to the educational outcomes for children in father absent households due to death versus father absence due to divorce since currently there is a near absence of studies directly comparing these two groups (Mack, 2001). Children with deceased fathers are not usually singled out as a stand-alone category due to the low prevalence of widowhood and parental death in our society during the time children are being reared, making this a unique aspect of the current study. Furthermore, results from the analyses conducted on children with absent-fathers due to death, children from other forms of single parenthood due to divorce, separation, or never marrying, and children from two- parent homes may lend support to one of the conflicting arguments on the effects of educational success in father absent households. Two practical implications arise from this study. First, educators can use the information gained from this study to better serve students and to identify children at-risk for lower educational outcomes based on their type of single-mother household. In addition, policy makers can utilize this information to form policies or programs to assist the families in overcoming their deficits and lower the risk for poor educational outcomes due to their status as a single-mother household. 4 LITERATURE REVIEW In the past fifty years, the structure of American families has been changing. Beginning around the 1960s, families moved from the two-parent nuclear family structure to more families with divorced or never-married parents. Progressing through the decades, society has altered its view on alternative family structures. In the 1960s, society was concerned that divorce and single parenthood would produce detrimental outcomes for children and increase social problems (McLanahan & Schwartz, 2002). This view shifted in the 1970s to a more passive attitude in that divorce and other forms of single motherhood were simply reflecting the growing independence women were gaining. However, since the 1980s it is believed that although children in single-parent homes fare well, they do not have the same rates of desired outcomes as their counterparts in homes with two parents present (McLanahan & Schwartz). Twenty years ago, Bumpass and Sweet (1989) set out to document the family experiences of children born between 1970 and 1984. They estimated that approximately half of all those children were likely to experience some time in single-parent families, particularly mother-only family households, by the time they were 16 years old. Their analyses revealed that 44 % of the children were expected to experience some sort of marital disruption and 53 % of those experiencing a disruption (over 23% of all children) would remain in single-parent homes throughout their childhood. However, a recent examination of family trends in the U.S. utilizing data from the 2003 Annual Social and Economic Supplement of the Current Population Survey (CPS) that compared trends between 1970 and 2003 reported that 26% of the population in family groups consists of single-mother and absent-father families (Fields, 2004). Out of the 12