Girls without a father in their life are two and a half times as likely to get pregnant and 53 percent more likely to commit suicide. Boys without a father in their life are 63 percent more likely to run away and 37 percent more likely to abuse drugs. Both girls and boys without a father are twice as likely to drop out of high school, twice as likely to end up in jail, and nearly four times as likely to need help for emotional or behavioral problems.

Source: U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services press release, "HHS Launches 'Be Their Dad' Parental Responsibility Campaign" (March 26, 1999)

According to a study of white families, daughters of single parents are 53 percent more likely to marry while still teenagers, 11 percent more likely to have children as teenagers, and 92 percent more likely to dissolve their own marriages.

Source: Cited in Irwin Garfinkel & Sara McLanahan, Single Mothers and Their Children (Urban Institute Press, 1989)

Premarital pregnancy, out-of-wedlock childbearing, and absent fathers are the most common predictors of child abuse.

Source: Selwyn M. Smith, Ruth Hanson, and Sheila Noble, "Social Aspects of the Battered Baby Syndrome," in Joanne V. Cook and Roy T. Bowles (eds.), Child Abuse: Commission and Omission (Butterworths, 1980)