Anecdotal, but looks like kids raised by single fathers do better than everybody else.

For last 8 years I've been working in a very crowded public school in a high crime, poor neighborhood. Naturally I deal with parents more than I want too and over the years I noticed that, most of the time, talking to mothers doesn't make any difference. Kid doesn't do homeworks, you talk to their mom, kid continues to not do homeworks. Same thing about poor grades, smoking, bad behavior, damaged books etc. etc. Rarely ever you see a positive change. And over the years I noticed that talking to fathers actually makes a difference. I don't know what they do at home, but I noticed that if there is a problem and you tell it to student's father, most of the time, problem gets resolved. I've seen it work countless times and it can't be a coincidence at this point. Also, dealing with fathers is, in general, much more pleasant than dealing with mothers. Some mothers complain their children don't listen, they blame teachers, they cuss, demand things, some even cry... while father usually say "ok, I will deal with it". Obviously not all mothers are like that, majority are pleasant people, but if I have unpleasant encounter with a student parent, it is usually their mom.