Children’s age at parental divorce and depression in early and mid-adulthood

Abstract

This study aimed to assess whether children's age at their parents' divorce is associated with depression in early and mid-adulthood, as indicated by medication purchase. A sibling comparison method was used to control for unobserved factors shared between siblings. The data were extracted from the Norwegian Population Register and Norwegian Prescription Database and included about 181,000 siblings aged 20-44 who had experienced parental divorce and 636,000 who had not. Controlling for age in 2004, sex, and birth order, children who were aged 15-19 when their parents divorced were 12 per cent less likely to purchase antidepressants as adults in 2004-08 than those experiencing the divorce aged 0-4. The corresponding reduction for those aged 20+ at the time of divorce was 19 per cent. However, the association between age at parental divorce and antidepressant purchases was only evident among women and those whose mothers had low education.

Like ripples on a pond: The long-term consequences of parental separation and conflicts in childhood on adult children's self-rated health

“…Mother's education. Previous research has repeatedly underlined that a higher maternal educational level reduces the separation disadvantages on children's well-being and mental health ( Kravdal & Grundy, 2019 ; Mandemakers & Kalmijn, 2014 ). In the second step of the analysis when only adult children from separated parents are included it can be assumed that most respondents lived with their mother after separation.…”

Taking birth year into account when analysing effects of maternal age on child health and other outcomes: The value of a multilevel-multiprocess model compared to a sibling model

“…Estimation of multilevel-multiprocess models may not always be a feasible or reasonable option in the first-mentioned situation, and is not relevant in the second, but it may help to include the sibling groups or individuals who have not experienced the event under study. Information about these people would then be used in the estimation of the effect of birth year (in the first situation) or age (in the second situation), the implicit assumption being that effects of birth year or age are the same for them as for those who have experienced the event (Kravdal and Grundy 2019;van den Berg et al 2014). However, a careful examination of how well such a procedure actually works in different situations remains to be done.…”

Mathematical control of divorce stress among marriages

“…Some literature shows that stepfamilies experience more stress than others and its output contributes more to marital termination (Amato 2000, Rita 2008) [1,12] . In addition to that, the post-separation factors related to divorcing mothers have a direct connection with health output as the result of mental disorders that suppress the socioeconomic and cultural settings in the society ((Stephenson and DeLongis 2018, Øystein and Emily 2019) [13,10] . Modelling social aspects such as divorce in marriage creates more awareness in many families and builds intrinsic harmony among the partners and family.…”