Data on Single Parent Households

...exceeds the percentage of change attributable to divorce and, instead, reflects increasing births to nonmarried, single women. (p. 29)

Most single parent households are father-absent homes. However, Downey (1994) reports that single father households have dramatically increased in the last ten years. In this regard, he notes that in 1980 there were about 616,000 single father households but by the beginning of 1990, there were well over one million single father homes.

Since single parent households tend to be low income homes (Garasky, 1995), and since the absence of one parent places greater stress on the single parent, it seems reasonable to believe that children being reared in single parent homes may suffer some negative effects. Might one of these negative effects be lowered academic achievement? The purpose of the review of literature presented here is to formulate an answer to this question by examining the existing research investigating for the effects of single parent households on students' academic achievement.

Single Parent Households and Academic Achievement

Does living in a single parent household depress children's level of academic achievement? Many studies do show a such a relationship. For example, Fea

. . .
ing out, all of whom tended to have roughly similar low self-esteem scores. Watts and Watts (1991) used path analysis and a series of least square regression statistics to examine for the effects of family configurations on students' levels of academic achievement. As with other studies, the authors used a national sample of students (N=4,137), all of whom provided survey information as high school sophomores and seniors as part of the High School and Beyond Study. Findings were observed to be negligible for family structure. Rather, low academic achievement was found to be related to factors such as ability, educational aspirations, and race. Specifically, it was found that higher ability levels and educational aspirations, the higher the level of academic achievement. Moreover, white students tended to perform better than minority students. Data from the High School and Beyond Survey were also examined by Zimiles and Lee (1991) for high school students from intact, single-parent, and remarried families. Differences in academic achievement and grades among the groups were statistically significant. However, the largest differences between groups were observed for drop-out behavior with students living in intact ho
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Program TCAP, Longitudinal Survey, Beyond Survey, Michigan Students, Gringlas Weinraub, Beach California, Weisner Garnier, Academic Achievement, Native American, Zimiles Lee, academic achievement, single parent, parent households, single parent households, students living, single parent families, parent families, single-parent families, parent homes, family configuration, socioeconomic status, single father, single parent homes, effects single parent, living single parent,
Approximate Word count = 3714
Approximate Pages = 15 (250 words per page)

More Essays on Data on Single Parent Households