Longitudinal Studies of Effects of Divorce on Children in Great Britain and the United States

Abstract

National, longitudinal surveys from Great Britain and the United States were used to investigate the effects of divorce on children. In both studies, a subsample of children who were in two-parent families during the initial interview (at age 7 in the British data and at ages 7 to 11 in the U.S. data) were followed through the next interview (at age 11 and ages 11 to 16, respectively). At both time points in the British data, parents and teachers independently rated the children's behavior problems, and the children were given reading and mathematics achievement tests. At both time points in the U.S. data, parents rated the children's behavior problems. Children whose parents divorced or separated between the two time points were compared to children whose families remained intact. For boys, the apparent effect of separation or divorce on behavior problems and achievement at the later time point was sharply reduced by considering behavior problems, achievement levels, and family difficulties that were present at the earlier time point, before any of the families had broken up. For girls, the reduction in the apparent effect of divorce occurred to a lesser but still noticeable extent once preexisting conditions were considered.

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

“…In each subsequent year, mothers were asked whether they had divorced or separated from their spouse in the last 12 months. Consistent with most empirical studies (e.g., Cherlin et al, 1991;Zill et al, 1993), parental divorce and separation were not distinguished. The large majority of marital separations end in divorce within 3 years, and it has been argued that in terms of child adjustment, the critical point in time is the parents' marital separation, whether or not this is accomplished through legal divorce (Bramlett & Mosher, 2002).…”

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).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.…”

Evolution of Paternal Investment

“…However, causal relations are again difficult to determine. Many of the differences between children from divorced and intact families can be traced to differences in family functioning before the divorce (Cherlin et al, 1991;Furstenberg & Teitler, 1994). Still, some differences between children from intact and divorced families are found, after controlling for predivorce levels of family conflict and other confounding variables.…”