The Effect of Absent Biological Father on Female Biological Maturity: Results From a Nationally Representative Sample of Adolescents

Belsky, Steinberg, and Draper’s sociobiological theory suggests that early family context influences an individual’s developmental trajectory in adolescence. A key hypothesis derived from the developmental model is that females growing up in a home without a father will have an earlier onset of puberty and may reach pubertal maturity sooner than their peers who grow up in homes with a father present. The current study uses a nationally representative sample of American youth (Add Health) to examine the association between having an absent biological father and female biological maturity, controlling for additional theoretically informed covariates. The current study contributes to the literature by utilizing a lifetime measure of absent biological father and a biological maturity scale (measured in adolescence) that taps into multiple aspects of pubertal development. Results from multivariate regression analysis revealed no significant association between absent biological father and female biological development. This finding suggests that, contrary to the sociobiological model, having an absent biological father in childhood is not predictive of advanced pubertal development among female adolescents.