Related Review Literature

Parents are a source of comfort and warmth for their children. With one or both parents

absent, adolescents can be deprived of necessary attention. When the mother or father is absent from

the home, children may suffer and feel they don’t have all the support they need. To hide this

vulnerability and possibly counteract it, some young people may, among other things, become

aggressive with the intention of intimidating others before becoming victims themselves. Although

some previous studies have looked into the effect of parental absence on children's academic

achievements, it investigate the effects of parental absence on both the cognitive and non‐

cognitive skills of children. Our results show that parental absence during early child

development mostly incurs negative effects on the academic achievement and non‐cognitive

development of children. A child whose parents are both absent tends to have lower mathematics

test scores, lower self‐assessment on his/her behavior, and is less likely to be happy and satisfied.

A gender difference is also observed in the effect of parental absence: girls suffer more from the

effect of both parents being absent on their mathematics test scores than do boys (Wu, 2017).