Study
says kids raised by mom or dad alone have more problems by Emma Ross, Detroit Free Press, January 24, 2003
Children growing up in single-parent families are twice as likely as their
counterparts to develop serious psychiatric illnesses and addictions later
in life, according to a study.
Researchers have for years debated whether children from broken homes
bounce back or whether they are more likely than kids whose parents stay
together to develop emotional problems.
Experts say the latest study, published this week in the medical journal
the Lancet, is unprecedented in scale and follow-up -- it tracked about a
million children for a decade, into their mid-20s.
The question of why and how those children end up with such problems is
not answered, but the study bolsters the view that it may not be
single-parenthood or the financial hardship that can come with it, but
rather the quality of the parenting that's responsible.
The study used the Swedish national registries, which cover almost the
entire population of that country. Children were considered to be living
in a single-parent household if they were living with the same single
adult in both 1985 and 1990. That could have been the result of divorce,
separation, death of a parent, out-of-wedlock birth, guardianship or other
reasons.
About 60,000 were living with their mothers and 5,500 with their fathers.
There were 921,257 living with both parents. The children were between the
ages of 6 and 18 at the start of the study.
The scientists found that children with single parents were twice as
likely as others to develop a psychiatric illness such as severe
depression or schizophrenia, to kill themselves or attempt suicide, and to
develop an alcohol-related disease. Girls were three times more likely to
become drug addicts if they lived with just one parent, and boys were four
times more likely.
The researchers concluded that financial hardship, which was defined as
renting rather than owning the home and as being on welfare, made a big
difference.
But other experts questioned the importance of financial influence, saying
Swedish single mothers are not poor when compared with those in other
countries.
"It makes you think that what you're seeing is just the most dysfunctional
families having these problems, rather than the low income. The money is
really an indicator of something else,"said Sara McLanahan, a professor of
sociology and public affairs at Princeton University.
It could well be the quality of the parenting, she said. Other experts
agreed.
In the last 30 years, poverty has been greatly reduced everywhere in
Europe, but psychiatric problems in children have not, said Dr. Stephen
Scott, a child health and behavior researcher at the Institute of
Psychiatry in London, who was not involved in the study.
