Boys Hurt More Than Girls in Dysfunctional Families

[From article]
The social scientific evidence about the connection between violence and broken homes could not be clearer. My own research suggests that boys living in single mother homes are almost twice as likely to end up delinquent compared to boys who enjoy good relationships with their father. Harvard sociologist Robert Sampson has written that "Family structure is one of the strongest, if not the strongest, predictor of variations in urban violence across cities in the United States." His views are echoed by the eminent criminologists Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi, who have written that "such family measures as the percentage of the population divorced, the percentage of households headed by women, and the percentage of unattached individuals in the community are among the most powerful predictors of crime rates."
Why is fatherlessness such a big deal for our boys (almost all of these incidents involve boys)? Putting the argument positively, sociologist David Popenoe notesthat "fathers are important to their sons as role models. They are important for maintaining authority and discipline. And they are important in helping their sons to develop both self-control and feelings of empathy toward others, character traits that are found to be lacking in violent youth."

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/366405/sons-divorce-school-shooters-w-bradford-wilcox

Sons of Divorce, School Shooters
By W. Bradford Wilcox
December 16, 2013 12:06 PM

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[From article]
Even the most conscientious mother can’t always protect a boy, particularly a restless and impulsive one, from a culture in which gangs have replaced fathers, the threat of violence looms, and schools are filled with apathetic or hostile males. A highly publicized recent study by the Equality of Opportunity Project comparing social mobility by region found that areas with high proportions of single-parent families have less mobility—including for kids whose parents are married. The reverse also held, the study discovered: areas with a high proportion of married-couple families improve the lot of all children, including those from single-parent homes. In fact, a community’s dominant family structure was the strongest predictor of mobility—bigger than race or education levels. This research suggests that having plenty of married fathers around creates cultural capital that helps not just, say, the coach’s son, but every member of the Little League team.

http://www.city-journal.org/2013/23_4_boy-trouble.html

KAY S. HYMOWITZ
Boy Trouble
Family breakdown disproportionately harms young males—and they’re falling further behind.
City Journal
Autumn 2013, Vol. 23, No. 4