This list makes me wonder whether the same pathologies exist in military families where a father is gone for up to a year at a time, at sea or on deployment in a zone where families cannot follow. My social scientist training says if the answer is "yes," absence is truly the issue.
- At a higher risk of having behavioral problems.
- Four times more likely to live in poverty.
- More likely to be incarcerated in their lifetime.
- Twice as likely to never graduate high school.
- At a seven times higher risk of teen pregnancy.
- More vulnerable to abuse and neglect.
- More likely to abuse drugs and alcohol.
- Twice as likely to be obese.
If the answer is "no," other factors associated with women raising children alone may be the underlying issues, things like trying to find enough hours in the day to both parent and earn a living. Or living in one-earner-family poverty and what that means in terms of where one lives, where one's kids go to school, who their friends are.
I can imagine a third alternative in which some, but not all, of the listed factors exist when a military father, though still a fond part of the family, is absent for long periods and thus has diminished impact as the male role model particularly sons need. Here the interest would be in determining which of the listed items are/are not salient for military families.
Clearly the development of video conferencing technologies like FaceTime™ has to some degree reduced the impact of military family separations.
