Growing up in single-parent families and the criminal involvement of adolescents: a systematic review

ABSTRACT

Many studies have investigated the relation between growing up in single-parent families and crime. However, an up-to-date overview of the literature on this topic is lacking. To fill this gap, this article reviews the empirical literature regarding the effects of being raised in a single-parent family on criminal behavior of adolescent offspring, and additionally focusses on whether the effects depend on how single-parent families were constituted (by parental divorce or separation, by parental decease, or by being born to a single parent). A systematic search in five electronic databases (Web of Science, PsycINFO, Scopus, SocINDEX, and EconLit) is conducted to identify empirical studies on this topic, resulting in 48 studies that conform to a range of substantive and methodological selection criteria. The results suggest that growing up in single-parent families is associated with an elevated risk of involvement in crime by adolescents and that more research is needed to determine the effects of the different constituting events of single-parent families.

KEYWORDS:

• Single-parent families
• Parental divorce
• Criminal behavior
• Adolescence
• Systematic review

Acknowledgement

The authors thank Tuan Cassim for his valuable assistance during the screening and selection process of the studies. Support was provided by the Amsterdam Law and Behavior Institute (A-LAB) and the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Some studies made additional distinctions, e.g. by including stepparents. Of the 48 included studies, 26 studies did not report on including or excluding single-parent families with an additional caregiver. In the remaining 22 studies, we checked whether adolescents in single-parent families and the adolescents in single-parent families including an additional caregiver differed with regard to their level of criminal behavior. Seven studies showed no differences between the two types of single-parent families, and the other studies showed mixed results.