Parental gender, single-parent families, and delinquency: Exploring the moderating influence of race/ethnicity

Despite the great interest in the relationship between family structure and delinquent behavior generally, very little research has explored variation within the family form of single parenting and its implications. The present study examines whether parental gender is associated with delinquent behavior and marijuana, alcohol, and other illicit drug use, and whether the magnitude of an association between parental gender and delinquency is moderated by race/ethnicity. The analyses can be interpreted as supporting either the structural or maternal hypotheses, with parental gender (namely living with a father) being found to increase the risk of alcohol use generally, while females living with their fathers are at an increased risk of being involved in delinquent behavior. The only evidence of race/ethnicity conditioning the relationship between parental gender and deviant behavior was for marijuana use—living with one’s father increases the risk of Hispanic/Latino adolescents engaging in marijuana use. While these finding provide further evidence that children living with single fathers may be at an increased risk of being involved in delinquent behavior (under certain conditions), additional research is needed to further evaluate the conditional nature of the single-father–delinquency association.