Delinquent behavior, future divorce or nonmarital childbearing, and externalizing behavior among offspring: A 14-year prospective study.

Abstract

In a longitudinal study of a national sample, more externalizing behavior problems were found among 222 children from never-married and 142 children from divorced families than among 840 children from married families. However, delinquent behavior reported when future mothers were single, childless adolescents prospectively predicted their future marital status and behavior problems among their offspring 14 years later. Maternal history of delinquent behavior accounted for much, but not all, of the relationship between marital status and children's externalizing behavior. Divorce and nonmarital childbirth do not occur at random, and these findings demonstrate that marital status is predicted by individual characteristics as well as by demographic factors. These findings highlight the importance of cautiously interpreting the much-discussed correlation between marital status and children's behavior problems. Much research has been conducted on the psychological adjustment of children who are born outside of marriage or whose parents divorce. Research has been stimulated by the dramatic increases in the rates of both divorce and nonmarital childbirth in the United States since the 1960s. Rates have stabilized and are slowly showing a downward trend, but about 40% of all children born to married parents still are predicted to experience their parents' divorce (U.S. Census Bureau, 1992), and about 25% of all children in the United States

A Genetically Informed Study of Marital Instability and Its Association With Offspring Psychopathology.

“…Cherlin et al, 1998). The extent to which selection versus causation contributes to the wellbeing of offspring during childhood could not be addressed in the current study, although some research suggests that selection effects may be stronger during childhood than during adult life (J. C. Cherlin et al, 1991;Emery, 1999).…”

“…NIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript and society at large continue to be heavily debated in the academic and popular press (e.g., Emery, 2004;Hetherington & Kelly, 2002;Wallerstein, Lewis, & Blakeslee, 2000; review in Thompson & Wyatt, 1999).…”

“…Cherlin et al, 1998). The extent to which selection versus causation contributes to the wellbeing of offspring during childhood could not be addressed in the current study, although some research suggests that selection effects may be stronger during childhood than during adult life (J. C. Cherlin et al, 1991;Emery, 1999).The magnitude of the association between parental marital instability and abnormal behavior in the offspring, in addition to the limited role of selection factors, suggest that intervention efforts should be targeted at reducing the prevalence of divorce or separation in families with children or should focus on risk factors that typically follow a divorce. These include 6 Because differences in family contact among MZ and DZ twins can influence the within-family effect sizes (D'Onofrio et al, 2003), the amount of contact between the twins, amount of time the offspring spent with their aunt or uncle while growing up, distance between the two families, and a measure of closeness between the offspring and their aunt or uncle were included in the hierarchical regressions for each factor, but the variables did not alter the estimates.…”

“…Family and parental characteristics that precede a separation, such as marital conflict (Amato, Loomis, & Booth, 1995) and parental psychopathology (Hope, Power, & Rodgers, 1999), may also account for the postdivorce behavioral problems in the offspring (Hetherington, Bridges, & Insabella, 1998). Even more distal factors, such as maternal history of delinquency, may likewise account for the adjustment problems in the offspring of divorced parents (Capaldi & Patterson, 1991;Emery, Waldron, Kitzmann, & Aaron, 1999).Twin studies have shown that genetic factors influence divorce and marital stability (Jockin, McGue, & Lykken, 1996;McGue & Lykken, 1992;Trumbetta & Gottesman, 1997), suggesting that outcomes in offspring related to parental divorce may be due to genotypic factors. Because parents both provide the environment for their children and transmit their genes to their offspring, environmental and genetic factors are correlated.…”

Trajectories of internalizing, externalizing, and grades for children who have and have not experienced their parents' divorce or separation.

“…One advantage of the analytic strategy we adopted is that it helps address the concern in many studies regarding the confound between current age and age at the time of the divorce (see Emery, 1999). The variables that we analyzed were created to reflect internalizing, externalizing, and academic grades in relation to the age at the time of the divorce.…”