Family Facts: Social Science Research on Family, Society & Religion

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This finding looks at the relationship between family structure and domestic violence.

Compared to peers in intact families, children in other family structures experienced significantly higher rates of exposure to domestic violence. While 9.9 percent of adolescents not living with both biological parents reported witnessing violence in their homes, only 4.4 percent of those living with both biological parents reported the same. In addition, 6.9 percent of adolescents not living with both biological parents reported that they had been the direct victims of domestic violence, compared to 3.5 percent of those living with both biological parents. Finally, 11.5 percent of adolescents who did not live with both parents reported that they had both witnessed and been the victims of violence in their homes—twice the percentage (5.8 percent) of peers living with both biological parents.

Sample or Data Description
Data come from the 1998 Minnesota Student Survey (MSS), which was administered to 6th, 9th, and 12th grade students in 97 percent of the school districts in Minnesota (408 districts) every three years. The analytic sample consisted of 133,794 youth respondents.

Source
"Correlation Between Different Experiences of Intrafamilial Physical Violence and Violent Adolescent Behavior"
Yexley, Melinda
Borowsky, Iris, and Ireland, Marjorie
Journal of Interpersonal Violence Vol. 17, Number . , 2002. Page(s) 707-720.

FindingID: 3790