[X-Post TIL] The relationship between single-parent families and crime is so strong that controlling for it erases the difference between race and crime and between low income and crime.

notmyusualreddit · 2015-05-06T09:14:25+00:00

The reddit statisticians are already trying to debunk it.. but anyone thats seen how a single mom raises their kids vs how single dads do knows that being raised by only a mom is asking for trouble.

chavelah · 2015-05-06T10:05:17+00:00

The Cato Institute absolutely has an axe to grind with poor people in general. But they're not wrong about the effect of normalizing out-of-wedlock parenthood. They're calling it "single parenthood," not recognizing that the fathers of these income-generating children are very often involved in their lives - but unofficially, since their presence in the household as an actual family member would shift the burden of providing support off the government and onto them. Meanwhile, the young mother avoids employment for the same reason - to keep the welfare benefits flowing. I can't blame any poor person for looking at the system and making rational economic choices in response to how it functions, but yes, the current welfare model encourages young people to have children they can't support, and to have children outside of marriage.

thekarateguy · 2015-05-06T14:35:22+00:00

It is likely a confluence of several factors, but I would hesitate to discount the poverty/crime relationship.

I also would be very interested to see some research that compares single father vs single mother households with respect to the crime rates of their children. Anyone know of such a study?

DroogDim · 2015-05-06T16:12:28+00:00

Well, that can't be true. Otherwise the wholly made up narrative about the evils of the traditional family, and the uselessness of fathers, wouldn't be worth the pixels on which they are memorialized.

CornyHoosier · 2015-05-06T17:08:02+00:00

I'm an only child raised by a single mother (and we were very poor). She had to work a lot to afford everything, but she always told me I could be whatever I wanted.

I've never been in trouble with the law. It's been a struggle to get to where I am, but she has always given me positive encouragement when I'm feeling down.

InBaggingArea · 2015-05-06T09:54:25+00:00

This does seem an extraordinary result.

joe_bruised_ego · 2015-05-06T11:48:22+00:00

When statistics are perfectly correlated it erases them. It would be just as accurate to say “the relationship between race and crime is so strong that controlling for it erases the difference between single-parent families and crime and between low income and crime” or “the relationship between low income and crime is so strong that controlling for it erases the difference between race and crime and between single-parent families and crime.”

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