Are the children of fatherless families more frequently emotionally disturbed in adult life? - A short report

It has been the subject of numerous debates recently whether children who g rew up without fathers suffer more than others under the long-term conseque nces of their fatherless childhood. In 1994 we conducted a large-scale popu lation-based investigation over a hundred subjects who had grown up without father to establish standardized norms for various psychometric questionna ires that were also relevant to this issue. This allows us to contribute to the discussion with some concrete data, which correspond without exception with the dominant trend of other research results. Whereas there was evide nce to support the view that some children of fatherless families do indeed suffer from increased emotional disturbance in later life, there were also indications that others even profited emotionally from their fatherless ch ildhood. In the area of bodily complaints the results were confounded to a high degree with gender differences, showing that women are more frequently negatively affected, and men more positively.