Addressing a gap in the extant literature on single-parent families and juvenile delinquency, we distinguish between different types of single-parent families. Using Dutch population register data on nearly 1.3 million children, we performed logistic regressions to assess the relation between growing up in a single-parent family before age 12 and the likelihood to engage in juvenile delinquency during adolescence. Our findings suggest that the likelihood of juvenile delinquency increases (1) when children are born to a single parent, followed by children with separated parents and children experiencing parental death, compared to children growing up with both biological parents; (2) when the single-parent family started at a younger age; and (3) when children grow up with only a biological mother, for both sons and daughters, compared to only a biological father. The relationship between growing up in single-parent families and juvenile delinquency is much more complex than often assumed. Future research should pay more attention to diversity in the composition of single-parent families.

针对现有文献中关于单亲家庭和青少年犯罪的空白，我们区分了不同类型的单亲家庭。使用荷兰近 130 万儿童的人口登记数据，我们进行了逻辑回归，以评估 12 岁之前在单亲家庭中长大与青春期从事青少年犯罪的可能性之间的关系。我们的研究结果表明，与与亲生父母一起长大的孩子相比，当孩子是单亲父母所生，其次是父母分居的孩子和父母去世的孩子时，青少年犯罪的可能性会增加；（二）单亲家庭年龄较小时；(3) 当孩子只有一个亲生母亲长大时，对于儿子和女儿来说，与只有亲生父亲相比。在单亲家庭长大与青少年犯罪之间的关系比人们通常认为的要复杂得多。未来的研究应更加关注单亲家庭构成的多样性。