Their report is a sobering read. Consider the link between crime rates and family structure. You can actually use the divorce rate in a given area to predict its level of crime, according to University of Chicago sociology professor Robert Sampson, who studied 171 U.S. cities with populations above 100,000 and found that the lower a city's divorce rate, the lower its crime rate. Another study tracked 6,400 boys over 20 years and found those who grew up without fathers in the home were two to three times more likely to commit crimes. Then, there's the connection between divorce and poverty.
Studies also show divorce affects education.
Girls from intact families are also far less likely to skip school. The effect of divorce on sexual behavior is noteworthy, too. U.S. and British studies show that daughters of divorced parents are more likely to engage in pre-marital sex. African-American girls are 42 percent less likely to have sex before age 18 if they live at home with their biological fathers. But a stepfather can have the opposite effect, with one study of Hispanic-Americans girls finding this makes them 72 percent more likely to have sex before 18.