Dads matter. Dads matter a lot. Single-parent households (over 90% of which are mother-only) are more likely to be impoverished households:
Fatherless black children are over three times as likely to be poor compared to their dual-parent counterparts.
To make matters worse for black children, they are twice as likely as their white peers to be raised in single-parent homes:
The good news, though, is that African American kids actually get more from dad when he's around than white kids do, suggesting that a decrease in single-mother households would offer more benefit for blacks than it would whites and thereby aid in closing the life achievement gap between the two races.
Black fathers outperform white fathers in many of the important categories, including those most determinant of later academic success such as reading to young children and helping older ones with homework. The key is getting them in the home.
More good news is that the kinds of problems plaguing black communities (high crime rates, poor academic achievement, etc.) are very responsive to the presence of a father. For example, adding a father to a fatherless home reduces the chances a student will drop out of school before graduating high school from 70% to 30% and halves the likelihood of a young man committing a crime (
Statistics on Fatherless Children in America). Again, you just need to get dad through the front door.
All of these things taken together strongly support a reduction in fatherless homes as a tool for improving the welfare of African American families.
But again, dad's gotta be there for these benefits to manifest, so the next question would be: how do we make that happen?
Love your enemies!