2 Million More
Father Absence on the Decline: 2 million more children are living in same homes as their biological fathers today than in 2004
There is great news to report on National Fatherhood Initiative’s most basic measure of father absence in America – nearly 2 million more children live in the same homes as their biological fathers today than in 2004.i
How many is 2 million? That’s the entire population of America’s fourth largest city, Houston, TX. It’s enough people to fill 25 football stadiums!
Children from father-absent homes face an increased risk on various measures of child well-being, but tonight, 2 million more children will go to sleep in the same homes as their dads. That is 2 million more bedtime stories; 2 million more children learning how to play catch with their dads; 2 million more children receiving love and encouragement from involved, responsible, and committed fathers.
This national decline in father absence represents more than a 4 percent decrease in father absence in just four years – from 34.5 percent of children in 2004 to 33 percent in 2009.ii
National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI), in its 15th year of operations, has worked to decrease father absence and help fathers get the skills they need to be the best dads they can be. Since 2002, NFI has provided in-person training across the United States to 7,040 facilitators from 3,267organizations to deliver fatherhood programming to their communities. Since September of 2008, NFI has also reached nearly 3,000 practitioners via web-based trainings. These training programs are designed to help individuals and organizations in the community, health care, business, faith, military, and corrections sectors add effective fatherhood supports to the work they do to strengthen families.
Additionally, NFI ran an award-winning public service advertising campaign to promote responsible fatherhood that generated over $500 million in donated media in 11 years.
From 1960 to 2004, the percentage of children living apart from their biological fathers rose from 11 percent to 34.5 percent. The drop in the last five years to 33 percent represents a notable shift in the living arrangements of children.
i According to the 2009 Current Population Survey from the U.S. Census Bureau, 49.7 million children live in the same homes as their biological fathers, representing 67 percent of all children. In 2004, the number and percentage were 48 million and 65.5 percent respectively.
ii The 5% decrease is the percentage difference between 34.5 and 33, which is calculated by dividing the difference in the percentages (1.5) by 34.5 (yielding 0.043) and multiplying it by 100 to reach 4.3%.