Single parent homes are a factor in children?s mental health

July 31, 2012

Free Market Foundation

Children growing up in single-parent homes are at twice the risk of developing serious psychiatric illnesses and addictions later on, according to a comprehensive new Swedish study in the British medical journal Lancet.

Tracking about a million Swedish children for a decade, into their mid-20s, the study found:

Children with single parents were twice as likely as the 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 a sole parent, and boys were four times more likely.

Financial hardship, which the researchers defined as renting rather than owning a home and as being on welfare, made a big difference.

Other researchers question whether poverty is the cause noting that mothers in Sweden are not typically poor compared with those in other countries. In fact, outcomes in Sweden are similar to outcomes for single-parent households in other countries.

Source: Associated Press, Children in Single-Parent Homes Found at Risk of Mental Illness, New York Times, January 24, 2003.

For text (NYT subscription required)
For more information on Lancet

For more on Families http://www.ncpa.org/iss/soc/

FMF Policy Bulletin\28 January 2003