"Children who grow up without fathers are more likely to drop out of school and wind up in prison," Obama said at a town-hall style meeting at the White House that including several top sports stars.
"They're more likely to have substance abuse problems, run away from home and become teenage parents themselves.
"And I say this as someone who grew up without a father in my own life."
Obama endured a childhood mostly with an absent Kenyan Dad, and in many ways launched his political career in his book "Dreams from My Father" in which he traced his own ancestry and described his upbringing.
He often credits his mother -- who died of cancer in 2008 -- and his late grandmother and grandfather with key roles in his meteoric rise to the pinnacle of political life.
"Despite all their extraordinary love and attention, that doesn't mean that I didn't feel my father's absence," Obama said.
"That's something that leaves a hole in a child's heart that a government can't fill."
Children who grow up with an absent father is a particular problem in minority communities in inner cities.
"If we want our children to succeed in life, we need fathers to step up," Obama said.
"We need fathers to understand that their work doesn't end with conception; what truly makes a man a father is the ability to raise the child and invest in that child."
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