Harper & McLanahan 2004 — Father absence and youth incarceration

What the study found

Harper and McLanahan tracked a large longitudinal sample of adolescent males to test how growing up without a father related to later incarceration. They found that adolescents in father-absent households did face elevated incarceration risks, but that a sizable portion of that risk could be attributed to other factors — such as teen motherhood, low parental education, racial inequalities and poverty — rather than father absence alone. The highest risks of all were among adolescents in stepparent families, including father-stepmother households. ^[1]

a sizable portion of the risk for incarceration apparently related to the father's absence from the home could be attributed to other factors, such as teen motherhood, low parent education, racial inequalities, and poverty

^[1]

Why it matters here

This study is one of the most frequently cited pieces of evidence in arguments over whether absent fathers drive youth crime. It supports part of that intuition — boys in father-absent homes were more likely to be incarcerated — while also showing that much of the apparent effect tracks poverty, parental education and other confounds, and that stepfather-present homes fared worst of all. Those nuances matter directly for the check on whether fatherlessness causes crime, where a raw correlation is often presented as straightforward cause and effect.