Family Facts: Social Science Research on Family, Society & Religion
Top Ten Findings
Protecting Children and Family Against Violence
March 2007
1. Adolescents in intact families are the least likely to exhibit delinquent behavior. Adolescents living with married, biological parents were less likely to exhibit delinquent behaviors such as deliberately damaging property, stealing, seriously injuring another individual, selling drugs, etc., than youths living with their mothers only, those living with their mothers and married stepfathers, and those living with their mothers and mothers’ cohabiting partners.
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2. Youth in intact families are less likely to engage in high-risk behaviors compared to peers in other family structures. Compared with adolescents in intact families, youths who lived with a divorced parent, whether single or remarried, were more likely to engage in high-risk behaviors such as substance abuse, carrying a weapon, fighting, and sexual activities. This family structure effect remained even after controlling for demographic, parenting style, and community factors.
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3. Adolescent girls who have never lived apart from their parents are less likely to report sexual abuse than those who have. The odds of reporting a forced sexual experience were more than 7 times greater for White adolescent women that had lived apart from their parents before age 16 when compared to similar White adolescent women that had not lived away from their parents before age 16. The odds of reporting a forced sexual experience were more than twice as great for White adolescent women that had experienced the marital disruption of their parents when compared to similar adolescents that had not experienced the marital disruption of their parents.
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4. Childhood sexual abuse is associated with other forms of abuse, neglect and family breakdown. Based on retrospective data, individuals who experienced sexual abuse during childhood were more likely to have suffered other types of adverse childhood experiences, including emotional abuse, physical abuse, battered mother, household substance abuse, household mental illness, parental separation/divorce, criminal household member, emotional neglect, and physical neglect, compared to individuals who did not experience sexual abuse a child. The association was highest for emotional abuse, physical neglect, and having a battered mother during childhood.
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5. In non-urban communities, higher levels of family disruption are associated with an increased prevalence of juvenile violence and crime. Higher levels of family disruption at the community level, as measured by the proportion of households with children headed by a single parent, were strongly and consistently associated with higher rates of juvenile arrest for rape, aggressive assault, weapons, and simple assault. An increase of 13 percent in single-parent households would predict a doubling of the overall offense rate.
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6. Parent-child bonds offer protection against youth violence. In this study, parent-child bonds (i.e. youths' integration within the family) were a protective factor against youth violence. These bonds provided stronger protection in neighborhoods characterized by fewer single-parent families than in neighborhoods where single families were more predominant.
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7. Individuals who were exposed to violence in their family of origin are more likely to be abusive toward their spouses and children. Exposure to parent-to-parent violence during the teenage years increased by the likelihood that, as an adult, an individual would abuse his or her children and spouse (over and above the risk associated with the adult's and child's ages and child's gender).
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8. Married mothers are less likely to suffer abuse than never-married mothers. Married mothers were less likely to suffer abuse than never-married mothers. In fact, even when the very high rates of abuse of separated and divorced mothers were added into the statistic, the rates of abuse among mothers who had ever been married were still lower than the rates of abuse among women who had never married and those who were cohabiting. Among mothers who were currently married or had ever been married, the rate of abuse was 38.5 per 1,000 mothers. Among mothers who have never been married the rate was 81 per 1,000 mothers.
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9. Married individuals report, on average, lower levels of domestic violence than cohabiting individuals. Compared with married people, cohabitors reported much higher levels of domestic violence, with 15 percent of the cohabitors and 5 percent of the married saying that they or their spouse hit, shoved, or threw things. Cohabitors who were engaged were no more likely to report violence than married couples. However, cohabitors who did not have plans to marry were much more likely to report couple violence than either married or engaged couples. The probability of male-to-female violence for married couples was 3.6 percent and 3.2 percent for female-to-male violence. Similarly, engaged cohabitors probabilities were 4.7 percent and 3.4 percent respectively. Cohabiting couples without definite plans to marry were more than twice as likely to experience violence in the relationship than either married couples or engaged cohabitors with a probability of male-to-female violence of 9.9 percent and a probability of female-to-male violence of 7.6 percent.
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10. Individuals who regularly attend religious services are less likely to perpetrate domestic violence. Compared with individuals who attended religious services only once a year or less, those who attended church regularly (at least once a week) were less likely to commit an act of violence against their partners. Regular attendance at religious services reduced the odds of perpetrating domestic violence by half for women and for men.
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Events:Religious Practice and Civic Life: What the Research Says October 4, 2007 |