A research team from the university’s School of Public Health zeroed in on Flint, Mich., a former auto industrial town, with a large Black population, that is now one of America’s most economically challenged and violent cities. They cross-referenced police data on youth assault arrests and U.S. Census Bureau data and found that in census tracts where there were low ratios of adult men to adult women, young people were 36 percent more likely to commit assaults.
When education attainment was added to the analysis, the results were even more pronounced: Adult male scarcity and the lack of a high school degree together accounted for 69 percent of the variation in the rates of violent behavior among 10-to-24-year-olds.
Daniel Kruger, research assistant professor at the university and an author of the study, told the AFRO that previous research has tied the absence of fathers to the increased likelihood that those children would be poor, would use drugs and would experience educational, health, emotional and behavioral problems and other adverse outcomes. However, he added, his study is the first to examine the impact of adult scarcity on youth violence at a community-wide level.
“Male scarcity is a powerful risk factor for youth violence that is currently unrecognized,” he said.