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Research on Divorce: Continuing Trends and New Developments
Abstract
Research on divorce during the past decade has focused on a range of topics, including the predictors of divorce, associations between divorce and the well-being of children and former spouses, and interventions for divorcing couples. Methodological advances during the past decade include a greater reliance on nationally representative longitudinal samples, genetically informed designs, and statistical models that control for time-invariant sources of unobserved heterogeneity. Emerging perspectives, such as a focus on the number of family transitions rather than on divorce as a single event, are promising. Nevertheless, gaps remain in the research literature, and the review concludes with suggestions for new studies.
... A large body of research found that divorce is related with physical, behavior and psychological problems in children, as well as with the decrease in the quality of life and well-being, personal, social and family (Amato 2001;Baert & van der Straeten, 2021;Corrás et al., 2017;Hornor, 2015;Larson & Halfon, 2013;Lund et al., 2006;Martinón et al., 2017;Rivas-Rivero & Bonilla-Algovia, 2020;Seijo et al., 2016) being more evident in the short term, that is, in the moments before and after the divorce (Baert & van der Straeten, 2021;Lansford, 2009), but it can also become chronic (Wallerstein & Resnikoff, 1997). As moderators of this relationship, the vulnerability of children and the family functioning (e.g, pre-and post-divorce relationship between parents, pre-and postdivorce conflict, pre-and post-divorce parenting) has been studied (Amato, 2001(Amato, , 2010. ...
... Recently taking mothers as informants, Mitchell et al. (2021) found that they observed higher levels of hyperactivity in boys than in girls. On the contrary, other literature has found that what really impacts children is the breakdown of the couple and that both boys and girls who live a divorce encounter additional problems to those of their evolutionary moment, being an event highly stressful for most (Amato, 2010;Lansford, 2009;Pérez-Testor & Alegret, 2009;Wallerstein & Resnikoff, 1997). ...
... Furthermore, a significant higher maladjustment was observed children from contentious separation families (litigants) in comparison with children from noncontentious separation families, increasing the family maladjustment in around 16%. Thus, the sequelae for children after parent separation is aggravated in contentious separation (Amato, 2010;Lansford, 2009;Pérez-Testor & Alegret, 2009;Wallerstein & Resnikoff, 1997), being generalizable to other domains as negative wellbeing (Afifi et al ., 2010); school failure (Corrás et al., 2017); adolescent-parent-relations (Fosco & Grych, 2010); children development (Kerig & Swanson, 2010); Perez-Gramaje et al., 2020); externalizing behaviors (Cacho et al., 2020); psychological (Seijo et al., 2016) and conduct problems (Arias et al., 2020). If to all this is added that contentious separations lengthen the conflict over time (these legal disputes usually last for years), the probability that these damages will become chronic is extremely high (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). ...
Background/Objective: In the European Union it is estimated that there are about 800,000 separations per year that involves approximately 500,000 children. The literature has found that parental divorce causes problems for children in academic performance, behavior, social competence, psychological adjustment, self-esteem, but the effects on family adjustment are unknown. Hence, a field study in order to know the effects of parental separation on the family adjustment of the children was designed. Method: 393 children and adolescents, 125 from parents separated in non-contentious proceedings, 122 from parents separated in contentious proceedings and 146 from cohabiting families, responded to a measure of family adjustment. Results: The results exhibited that the children of families in contentious separation reported a greater personal maladjustment than those of cohabiting families, an increase of 15.8%. In addition, the children of couples in contentious and non-contentious separation warned of greater family maladjustment than those of cohabiting families, a quantified increase of 55.9% and 45.1%, respectively. Furthermore, the children of families in the process of contentious separation exhibited greater family maladjustment than those of families in non-contentious separation, an estimated increase of 16.3%. Conclusions: The implications of the results for good professional practices, prevention and intervention are discussed.
... I Danmark er det at vokse op med skilsmisse en almindelig livsomstaendighed i mange børns hverdagsliv (hvert tredje barn/ung oplever, foraeldrenes samliv ophører) (Danmarks Statistik, 2018). Både i forskningen og blandt professionelle optraeder imidlertid typisk problematiserende forståelser af børn med skilte foraeldre 1 i forhold til fx generel trivsel og langtidseffekter (Amato, 2010;Thuen, Breivik, Wold og Ulveseter, 2015;CFF, 2014). Med den nye skolereform i 2014 ses et øget politisk fokus på elevers (mis)trivsel (Ministeriet for Børn, Undervisning og Ligestilling, 2016). ...
... Jeg har valgt at kalde dem for den normaliserende og den problematiserende tilgang. Den problematiserende tilgang understreger skilsmissens langvarige negative implikationer af social, sundhedsmaessig og psykologisk karakter for børnene (Amato, 2010;Wallerstein, Lewis og Blakeslee, 2000;Thuen, Breivik, Wold og Ulveseter, 2015). Denne dominerende tilgang består hovedsageligt af et fokus på skilsmisse som en problemudløsende begivenhed for børn (Thuen, Breivik, Wold og Ulveseter, 2015;Amato, 2010;Wallerstein, Lewis og Blakeslee, 2000). ...
... Den problematiserende tilgang understreger skilsmissens langvarige negative implikationer af social, sundhedsmaessig og psykologisk karakter for børnene (Amato, 2010;Wallerstein, Lewis og Blakeslee, 2000;Thuen, Breivik, Wold og Ulveseter, 2015). Denne dominerende tilgang består hovedsageligt af et fokus på skilsmisse som en problemudløsende begivenhed for børn (Thuen, Breivik, Wold og Ulveseter, 2015;Amato, 2010;Wallerstein, Lewis og Blakeslee, 2000). I den normaliserende tilgang forholder man sig til de samme fund/tal på en anden måde ved fx at tage højde for og undersøge en raekke formildende omstaendigheder, som fx faelles foraeldreskab, et kaerligt og opbakkende miljø, hvilket øger børnenes generelle velvaere og trivsel trods skilsmissen (Jevne og Andernaes, 2017;Kelly, 1993;Fabricius, 2003). ...
I denne artikel undersøger jeg børn med skilte forældres erfaringer med at deltage i en samtalegruppe. Jeg kigger nærmere på variationerne i børnenes forskellige måder at tale om deres liv med skilsmissen. Gennem et etnografisk inspireret feltstudie, der bygger på 23 børneinterviews samt seks måneders observationer i fire samtalegrupper på Sjælland i Danmark, udforsker jeg, hvordan børn i skilsmisse skaber mening i deres deltagelse i samtalegrupperne. Herunder, hvordan børns forskelligheder bliver opfattet af de professionelle, og på hvilke måder der skabes mulighed for at udfordre de dominerende forståelser af, hvad det vil sige at leve et hverdagsliv med skilsmisse. I artiklen træder det tydeligt frem, at børns generelle skilsmisseoplevelser varierer bredt og får forskellige implikationer for deres deltagelsesmuligheder. Nøgleord: Børn med skilte forældre, skilsmisse, samtalegrupper, børns meningsskabelse, sociale repræsentationer
... This result is in large part due to selection. Parents who adopt are, on average, more educated and have higher incomes than parents who do not adopt (e.g., Hamilton et al., 2007;Thomas, 2016), and both education and income are positively associated with marriage and maintaining twoparent households (e.g., Amato, 2010). Further, past studies have documented that family structures of children who are adopted vary in relation to sociodemographic characteristics. ...
... Measurements of risk factors vary widely and include parents' marital discord, low socioeconomic status, household overcrowding, paternal criminality, maternal psychiatric disorders, and child involvement with foster care, among other factors (e.g., Jones et al., 2004;Trentacosta et al., 2008). Although family structure is often included as a possible risk factor, some researchers have used similar logic to argue that couples who are exposed to a greater number of risk factors for divorce (e.g., having divorced parents, having low levels of religiosity, or being in a second or higher-order marriage) are at increased risk of divorce (Amato, 2010). ...
... The median income in our sample is higher than the U.S. population, on average (Guzman, 2019), in part because we excluded households without children. More people are married in households with children (72%) than households without children (52%) and marriage is positively related to income (Amato, 2010). On average, children resided in households with 2.4 children. ...
Past research indicates that children who are adopted are more likely to live with two married parents than their peers, whereas children with disabilities are less likely to live in this family structure. However, few of these studies employed representative data and none examined how adoption and disability interact in their relationship to family structure. Using 2018 American Community Survey data (n = 3,125,485 children), we employed logistic regression models to predict the odds of a child residing with two married parents based on the child’s adoption status, disability status, and the interaction of the two. Our findings support the view that adoptive parents are a select group. Our interaction term shows that the negative relationship between disability status and living with two married parents was significantly weaker for children who were adopted than those who were not, suggesting that adoption is protective for children with disabilities. We also found, however, that adopted children with disabilities were significantly less likely to live with two married parents than adopted children without disabilities. This finding supports a cumulative stress perspective among parents who adopt children with disabilities. Further supporting cumulative stress theories, we found that adopted children with disabilities (n = 7661) in socioeconomically disadvantaged groups were less likely to reside with two married parents than their counterparts. These findings suggest that while adoptive parents are a select group, there is important heterogeneity among them. Our findings also illuminate the greater need to support families who adopt children with disabilities.
... For both Europe and the US, there is ample empirical evidence to suggest that children of divorce and separation, or those living with a single parent at birth, fare worse in terms of educational outcomes than children living with both parents (Amato, 2000(Amato, , 2010Guetto et al., 2022)-what we refer to as the 'non-intact penalty'. Recent research in this field has followed two main lines of inquiry. ...
... studies have sought to understand whether the negative association between singleparent households and children's educational outcomes is causal or due to selection processes. The consensus is that, although smaller in magnitude, the negative effects of parental divorce/separation and absence of the father on children's outcomes remain even after controlling for unobserved family characteristics (Amato, 2010;Amato & Anthony, 2014). The second line of research has focused on heterogeneity in the non-intact penalty. ...
... The 'more to lose' mechanism seems particularly apt for explaining the wellknown finding that the effects of parental separation are weaker among black children in the US than in their white counterparts (McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994). There is ample empirical evidence to suggest that standardised household income declines considerably following parental separation (Amato, 2010;Ongaro et al., 2009), and children living in single-parent households-usually with a lone mother-are exposed to much higher risks of poverty (Aassve et al., 2007;Thévenon et al., 2018). In the light of the higher unemployment rates and lower income in black US households (Thiede et al., 2017), parental separation should imply a higher loss of economic resources for white children, which should translate into more negative consequences for their educational attainment. ...
Unlabelled:
This study explores whether the association between living in a single-parent household and children's educational outcomes differs by migration background through comparing natives with first- and second-generation migrant pupils from different areas of origin. While there is strong evidence of an educational gap between migrant and native pupils in Western countries-and particularly in Italy-the interaction with family structure has been under-investigated. We suggest that native children have more socioeconomic resources to lose as a consequence of parental breakups, and thus may experience more negative consequences from living in a single-parent household compared to migrant children, who tend to have poorer educational outcomes regardless of family disruptions. Moreover, for migrant children, family disruption could result from parents' migratory project (transnationalism) rather than separation or divorce, thus not necessarily implying parental conflict and a deteriorating family environment. Empirical analyses of data from the ISTAT 'Integration of the Second Generation' survey (2015) show that native Italian pupils from single-parent households in lower secondary schools are more strongly penalised in terms of grades, and less likely to aspire to the most prestigious upper secondary tracks when compared to second- and, especially, first-generation children. Indeed, the latter have been found to experience virtually no negative consequences from parental absence. Contrary to expectations, we found no substantial differences in the non-intact penalty based on the reason for parental absence (transnationalism vs divorce), nor by migrants' area of origin.
Supplementary information:
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10680-022-09638-z.
... Ese es el motivo por el que estas familias se encuentran en situación de "riesgo". Se han descrito detalladamente las consecuencias negativas de la persistencia en el tiempo de una dinámica familiar judicializada, identificándose efectos como trastornos de ansiedad y depresión (Amato, 2010;Gómez-Ortiz et al., 2017;Kelly y Emery, 2003;Muñoz-Ortega et al., 2008), problemas de conducta, adicciones, violencia (Fariña et al., 2020;Muñoz y Echeburúa, 2016) o las "prácticas alienadoras familiares" tal y como las denomina Linares (2015). Además, resulta importante indicar que quienes más suelen sufrir estas consecuencias son los descendientes de estas familias (Arch, 2010;Haddad et al., 2016;Jiménez-García et al., 2019;Novo et al., 2019). ...
... Estos resultados coinciden en que la presencia de estas dos últimas variables va a afectar negativamente a la coparentalidad posdivorcio, así como en la adaptación al mismo. Se ha demostrado que lo que compromete el funcionamiento adecuado de las familias no es la separación o divorcio en sí (Fabricius y Luecken, 2007) sino la gestión posterior del conflicto parental, que en muchos casos termina utilizando de forma excesiva al sistema judicial (Anderson et al., 2020), ocasionando duras consecuencias psicológicas y emocionales en todos los miembros de la familia, pero especialmente en los menores (Amato, 2010;Arch, 2010;Fariña et al., 2020;Gómez-Ortiz et al., 2017;Kelly y Emery, 2003;Muñoz-Ortega et al., 2008). ...
... Therefore, these kinds of families are at risk while suffering the hard consequences of relating this way. Most of them suffer anxiety or depression disorders (Amato, 2010;Gómez-Ortiz et al., 2017;Kelly y Emery, 2003;Muñoz-Ortega et al., 2008), as well as violence, addictions, or behavioral issues (Fariña et al., 2020). Children are the ones who suffer the most. ...
For the sake of prevention in high conflict families in process of separation or divorce who resolve situations by only attending court, and since there is no instrument to identify this trend, this paper aims to create a questionnaire for measuring characteristics predicting judicialization. This paper focuses on C-JUDIFA questionnaire’s content and internal validity, confirming that the items used accurately describe the characteristics to be measured while obtaining a good representativeness of the proposed scales. Factor analysis supports the three-factor structure theoretically proposed, while finding a strong correlation between all 9 suggested constructs. Likewise, further research is needed in order to analyze the relationship of all these factors in the judicialization tendency through the research of external validity.
... Theoretically, the divorce-stress-adjustment perspective assumes that post-divorce psychological adjustment depends on people's personal reserve capacity (Amato, 2010;Gallo et al., 2005). The reserve capacity is the presence of individual (e.g., coping skills), interpersonal (e.g., social support), and structural (i.e., socioeconomic factors) coping resources and mechanisms (Amato, 2010;Gallo et al., 2005). ...
... Theoretically, the divorce-stress-adjustment perspective assumes that post-divorce psychological adjustment depends on people's personal reserve capacity (Amato, 2010;Gallo et al., 2005). The reserve capacity is the presence of individual (e.g., coping skills), interpersonal (e.g., social support), and structural (i.e., socioeconomic factors) coping resources and mechanisms (Amato, 2010;Gallo et al., 2005). Therefore, public health interventions often aim to provide social support (i.e., interpersonal resources; Bowers et al., 2011;Geasler & Blaisure, 1998) and supplement individual coping strategies (i.e., individual resource; Bowers et al., 2011;Geasler & Blaisure, 1998)-however, without addressing individual structural resources. ...
... Fewer still have undertaken in-depth examination of the relation between the characteristics of divorce and attendant factors and the way children perceive their lives (Bream & Buchanan, 2003;Chappel, Suldo, & Ogg, 2014;Orgilés, & Samper, 2011;Sorek, 2019). Conversely, the rich body of literature on the lives of these children has focused on examining their adjustment to divorce and its effects on their wellbeing, with emphasis on the difficulties and psychopathologies involved (see Amato, 2010;;Van Dijk, Van der Valk, Deković, & Branje, 2020). Moreover, these studies are mostly based on adult reports or instruments that reflect an adult perspective on children's lives. ...
... This present study relies on the extensive knowledge accumulated on the outcomes of divorce for children, and examines them from their subjective point of view, i.e., the QoL perspective (Diener, 1995). It relies, moreover, on the extensive literature on the risk and resilience factors affecting the wellbeing of children of divorced parents (e.g., Amato, 2010;;Van Dijk, Van der Valk, Deković, & Branje, 2020) to examine factors affecting their QoL. Specifically, the risk factor discussed in this paper is parental conflict, and the resilience factors are the perceived overall social support and perceived grandparental support. ...
The quality of life (QoL) evaluations of children of divorced parents have been little studied. The literature focuses on the consequences of divorce for their wellbeing as reported by adults or examined using tools designed from the adult perspective. This study examines how risk (parental conflict) and resilience factors (perceived overall social support, closeness to grandparents, and open discourse with them about divorce) are related to the self-reported QoL of children of divorce. Cross-sectional online questionnaires for a child and one parent were completed by 122 children aged 7-17, from 86 Israeli families. Hierarchical linear models were employed, with mixed models accounting for the interdependency of children's data within each family. All risk and resilience factors were examined from the children's perspective, except parental conflict that was examined also from the parent's perspective. Parental conflict was found to be negatively associated and overall social support and close relationship with grandparents were positively associated with children's QoL evaluations. The more the children were involved in parental conflict, the more QoL measures were associated with it. The study also supported three models in which perceived overall social support and perceived grandparental support moderated the association between parental conflict and QoL evaluations. The importance of examining the wellbeing of children of divorce from their own perspective is discussed. In terms of practical implications, the findings suggest the need to reduce the involvement of children of divorce in parental conflict and to strengthen their social support systems, particularly their relations with grandparents.
... Divorces and separation rates have gone to an increase radically on a global level between 1960s &1970s which reached a peak in the early 1980s, as cited in Amato [1] and Wayne (2004) though it has dropped slightly since then particularly in industrialized countries [2]. United State of America recorded the highest divorce rate of 53% relative to other countries (Census bureau, 2018). ...
... …Arrogance causes failure to seeking solution to family problems ( Kadhi 1,4 and 5), unfaithfulness among couples eroded trust in marriage (Kadhi,1,2,3,4,5) and witchcraft (Kadhi1 and 3). In addition, drug abuse, misuse of social networks, and family interference in the privacy of couples has also caused divorce among couples… (Kadhi 2 and 3). ...
This dissertation attempts to assess assessed common factors contributing to divorce among couples in Zanzibar. The study employed a qualitative research approach where by interview and documentary reviews were used as a method of data collection. A total of 35 participants involved in this study, where by 30 participants were divorced men and women who were obtained through snowball sampling and five Kadhis who were purposely selected from both Unguja and Pemba districts. Thematic analysis procedure was applied to analyze data. The study found that there is a high prevalence of divorce among Zanzibar couples. The interviewees were particularly concerned about the overwhelming number of divorces which was on a steady uptrend. The study identifies factors which lead to the rate of divorce in Zanzibar and found that lack of tolerance among the couples, family interference of their children marriage, psychological and emotional abuse were the major common factors contributing to divorce among couples in Zanzibar. The study concluded that divorce problem is at larger extent and participants are aware of the magnitude of the divorce and it occurs every day and everywhere in Zanzibar. Thus this is a serious problem among young couples and children. In addition, family interference of children marriage and social networking, immaturity, sexual dissatisfaction, psychological and emotional abuse, drug abuse, poverty, belief on financial expenditure, financial stress contributes more to divorce among Zanzibar people. This leads to majority of young couples to face frequently fights in their marriages hence influencing divorce.
... Couple distress is associated with marital dissolution; depression; anxiety; substance abuse; poor performance at work; cardiovascular, immune, and endocrine system health; and mortality [5]. The resulting parental conflict can also have a direct impact on children's academic performance, as well as on their social, emotional, and behavioral health [6]. It is not surprising, then, that relationship distress is one of the most cited reasons why individuals seek psychotherapy [7,8]. ...
... 1. Is receiving current treatment through psychotherapy at the time of recruitment or anticipates doing so outside of the proposed study within the next 6 months 2. Has been previously diagnosed with any psychotic, somatoform, or dissociative disorder 3. Is taking medication known to treat psychosis, somatoform, psychotic or dissociative disorders or is taking a psychotropic medication 4. Is misusing drugs or alcohol, defined as frequent (more than once a week) and maintained (for more than a year) use that has led to a work or personal problem 5. Has a diagnosis of a neurodevelopmental, neurocognitive, personality, or paraphilic disorder 6. Reports having been arrested or in prison in the past 3 months 7. Reports losing her/his employment due to alcohol or drug-related problems 8. Reports an episode of sexual assault (as victim or perpetrator) in their life during the last 2 years 9. Reports current physical or sexual violence in their relationship 10. ...
Background: Couple relationship distress is common and associated with poor physical, psychological, relational outcomes for both partners. Emotionally Focused Therapy for couples (EFT) is a short-term structured approach based on attachment theory that integrates a humanistic, experiential approach to restructuring emotional experience and a systemic structural approach to restructuring interactions. This model has been shown to be an effective treatment for couple distress. The supporting research, however, has only been conducted with English-speaking couples. Despite Spanish being the second-most spoken language and meaningful cultural differences between English- and Spanish-speaking countries, the efficacy of EFT has not been examined in this cultural context. This study will examine the efficacy of EFT in this particular context and advance the understanding of potential mechanisms of change.
Methods: We will use a multicenter randomized wait-list controlled design to examine the efficacy of EFT in a Spanish-speaking sample of moderately distressed couples. One hundred forty individuals in 70 couples in Argentina, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, and Spain will be randomly assigned to receive 19-21 sessions of EFT or be placed on a wait list. Outcomes on a range of relational and individual mental health variables will be assessed prior to random assignment, throughout treatment, and at the conclusion of treatment. Primary outcomes will include dyadic adjustment, couple satisfaction, and attachment. Secondary variables, such as loneliness, parenting, affective communication, and sexual satisfaction, will be included as potential mediators of the treatment effect. Couples in the treatment group will also be assessed at 3-, 6-, 12-, 18-, and 24-month follow-ups. Process variables such as the therapeutic alliance will also be assessed routinely in couples assigned to the treatment group. Couples in the waitlist will receive a psychoeducational program based on EFT after completing the study.
Discussion: This study will be the first RCT of Emotionally Focused Therapy in a Spanish-speaking context. The results of the study will inform researchers interested in whether treatments developed and tested in the US and Canada can be effective in differing cultural contexts. It may also point researchers and clinicians to areas where cultural adaptation is needed to improve efficacy.
Trial registration: NCT04277325; February 20, 2020.
... Children respond differently to divorce, and their age has a huge impact, but the general conclusion is that divorce has adverse consequences when children are involved (Amato, 2000;Potter, 2010). In an extensive followup study by Amato (2010) the key findings were that children from divorced families were worse off than their peers from intact families. In their systematic review Sands, Thompson and Gaysina (2017) revealed that childhood parental divorce escalated adult depression; whilst Jackson, Rogers and Sartor (2016) identified the negative impact of parental divorce or separation in the early onset of alcohol abuse in adolescence. ...
... Previous studies reveal that though divorce does affect adolescents, it might be the consequences of the divorce and not the divorce itself (Kenyon, Rankin, Koerner & Dennison, 2007;Nelson, 2009;Woosley, Dennis, Robertson & Goldstein, 2008). Studies also found that divorce influences the wellbeing, behaviour and actions of both adults and children, although not necessarily over the long term or extensively in all cases, and therefore there might be many variations (Amato, 2010;Garriga & Härkönen, 2009;Härkönen, 2014). Other studies argue that there might be negative impacts before the actual divorce, and therefore it is difficult to precisely determine the effects on adolescents during the post-divorce phase (Galdeano & Vuri, 2007;Härkönen, 2013;Kim, 2011). ...
Although the effects of divorce on younger children have been researched, the same cannot be said for adolescents and their future development. This study focused on participants’ experiences of divorce and the effects on adolescent children during the post-divorce phase. Because this topic is relatively unexplored, a qualitative exploratory design was selected as few studies have investigated the post-divorce phase. Purposive and snowball sampling secured 12 adult and adolescent participants until data saturation was reached. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted, and two main themes emerged from the thematic data analysis. The two main themes were the psychosocial effects of divorce on adolescents, and role confusion. Institutional permission was obtained before commencement of the study as well as the requisite informed consent from the participants. Keywords: adolescent, adolescence, divorce, parents, post-divorce, psychosocial development
... According to the divorce stress-adjustment perspective [25], divorce in itself does not lead to negative consequences on family members, but rather to family life changes and stressful circumstances surrounding divorce that increase the risk of a variety of problems among children. These stressful factors refer to pre-and post-divorce interparental conflict levels, poorer relationship quality with the custodial parent, lower frequency of contact with the non-custodial parent [26,27], lower economic resources, and other stressful events, such as changing residence [28]. ...
... Overall, our results suggest that both parents' attitudes during the divorce process, whether or not they favor the adaptation of their children to this family experience, influence adult children's level of security in their affective relationships, and particularly their level of attachment-related anxiety and avoidance in intimate relationships. Thus, from the divorce stress-adjustment perspective [25], our findings make important contributions to better comprehend the effects of parental divorce by concluding that certain family process variables might better explain emerging adult children's reactions to divorce than divorce itself, in terms of attachment insecurity. Hereunder, we discuss in more detail these main conclusions. ...
The main goal of this study was to examine the role of parental behaviors during both the process of divorce and the post-divorce period on emerging adult children’s attachment-related anxiety and avoidance. Specifically, we analyzed how recalled coparental respect and cooperation, interparental conflict, positive parenting strategies, and both parents’ emotional state and instability from adult children’s perspective during the divorce process and the post-divorce period were associated with emerging adult children’s current attachment representations. Our sample consisted of 173 emerging adults (Mage = 22.01). The results of this study demonstrate that paternal coparental respect and cooperation along with freedom provided by the mother to talk about the father during the divorce process and post-divorce period were both related to lower attachment-related avoidance. Our findings also confirm a significant link between some paternal positive attitudes during the divorce process (i.e., freedom provided by the father to talk about the mother) and low attachment-related anxiety. Overall, the results of this research confirm that beyond divorce perse, several variables surrounding the divorce process better explain variations in adult children’s attachment representations, which contribute to better comprehending the effects of parental divorce.
... Pernikahan itu sendiri dianggap sebagai keadaan untuk menciptakan sebuah komitmen secara emosi maupun hukum yang sah untuk berbagi keintiman fisik dan emosional, berbagai macam tugas, dan juga dalam hal keuangan (Olson dkk., 2019). Juga memberikan dukungan secara emosional, persahabatan, pasangan seksual yang teratur, dan keamanan ekonomi untuk kedua pihak yang menjalaninya (Amato, 2010). ...
This study aims to compare the views of adolescents with divorced and complete parents on marriage. Using comparative method, the view on marriage was measured by marital horizon with additional open questions on learned criteria from parents' marriage. Through convenience sampling, the participants recruited were 319 adolescents aged between 21 and 28 years old live in Bandung with condition of divorced parents and complete parents. The descriptive analysis and Mann Whitney test show that there are differences on prioritizing marriage and the ideal age to get married. However, there is no differences on ideal age differences in marriage and criteria that should be prepared before marriage. Also, this study found religious affiliation as a criterion that should be prepared marriage and it is what they learned from their parents' marriage.
... This difference shows that leaving home is sensitive to the occurrence, timing and ordering of events. An early departure from a parental home is a situation that may have consequences for subsequent transitions, accentuate resource deficits (Amato, 2010), reduce accumulation opportunities and favour vulnerability later in life. ...
This chapter aims at uncovering the heuristic potential associated with analyzing family and occupational trajectories holistically for the study of social vulnerability. Empirically, sequence analysis shows that distinct and enduring structuring processes shape individual life courses. Long term historical processes contribute to standardize or to the contrary to diversify life trajectories. Institutional mechanisms based among others on gender differentiation lead to uneven participation in the labor market and in family life for women and men. The ways in which an individual trajectory unfolds in one social domain is influenced by the way it unfolds in another domain. Over their life course, individuals accumulate positive or negative life experiences closely linked to resources availability. For instance, the experience of parenthood can be simultaneously fulfilling and stressful; its actual impact on individuals depends on previous vulnerability as well as on active and dormant resources. Variations regarding cultural, socioeconomic or relational resources embedded in personal networks available to individuals are key indicators to explain the different patterns following which life trajectories are shaped over time and systemically associated with social vulnerability. This chapter shows that life trajectories have to be understood dynamically as being both a product and a determinant of social vulnerability.
... An alternative interpretation of the current findings is that wounds are healed over time, and attitudes can also change in time without intervention. Previous research indicates that distress associated with separation attenuates during the first 2 years post-separation (Amato, 2010;Halford & Sweeper, 2013). Further understanding about the normalizing of the separation process and how this can help parents work toward a productive co-parenting relationship that focuses on their child's well-being may help clarify the impact of the SPARK Program on participants. ...
In this research, we explore participant experiences of a post‐separation parenting program as a protective factor for helping with post‐separation adjustment. Separation is a difficult process for children and families. It often involves distress and conflict that can negatively affect well‐being. Post‐separation programs are a protective factor to help parents adjust post‐separation. However, there is a dearth of qualitative research exploring how these programs help with post‐separation adjustment. In‐depth semistructured interviews were conducted with a sample of 13 parents who had attended a post‐separation program. Thematic analysis was used for data analysis. Two reviewers independently coded data inductively, and coding was subsequently independently reviewed by a third reviewer. Group processes accompanying the program helped participants reduce distress in the acute post‐separation phase. Participants reported enhanced management of personal responses to the separation that contributed to personal development. Peer learning and support during this phase may be a relatively unexplored area. Post‐separation programs that normalize separation and include practical strategies for emotion regulation and effective communication may be helpful for individuals' adjustment post‐separation. Post‐separation programs should be offered by organizations that support separated parents to help adjust during the early phase of separation.
... A new union formation could foster wellbeing because couples will possibly share and pool at least some resources, such as income and social ties (conjugal resource model: Williams, Sassler, & Nicholson, 2008), and, particularly for lone mothers, potentially partially share parental care responsibilities. In contrast, repartnering could also challenge wellbeing because it represents a change in the relational status quo, thereby potentially creating stress even if temporary (crisis model: Amato, 2010). Repartnering may be particularly stressful if it deteriorates the relationship with the children's biological father (Berger, Cancian, & Meyer, 2012). ...
While close relations include both intimate family members and close friends, the transmission of socioeconomic resource remains largely confined within families. Moreover, family-transmitted values and sociopsychological skills are incorporated during childhood, and emotional and instrumental support is still mainly assumed by family members. These overlapping exchanges mean that family ties constitute durable resource for individuals, but that families are (also) damaging in case of tie dissolution, poor relational quality or gendered family practices. In this chapter, we examine how family and friends affect vulnerability processes differently by using three longitudinal datasets on long-term couples, lone parents, and ageing individuals, as well cross-sectional data on adults’ personal networks, collected with support from LIVES. We found that ambivalent and sometimes negative (i.e., resource depletion) aspects of family relationships emerge, in particular, in situations in which other key resources (including friendship ties) are missing, typically with the occurrence of stressful life events. Conversely, negative family events are more quickly overcome when sufficient resources (including friends) are available. Interestingly, some negative life events, such as job loss, are better dealt with through sparser personal networks. By contrast, normative life events act as densifiers or enlargers of both elective and family networks.
... Second, parental separation affects the capacities and expectations of parents and children to support each other. Research from Europe and the U.S. shows that parental separation is associated with disadvantage for parents as well as for children: Shifts in resources affect the need for support and often involve mutual losses across generations (Amato, 2010;Härkönen et al., 2017;McLanahan & Percheski, 2008). Parental separation is associated with deteriorating material and subjective wellbeing in the short term, resulting in average lower wellbeing later in life (Gruber, 2004;Keister, 2004). ...
Objective: We investigate support between parents and adult children across families exposed and not exposed to parental separation in Germany, by examining multiple types of support (i.e. emotional, material, and instrumental), both directions of provision (i.e. giving and receiving), and exchanges with mothers and fathers. Background: As parental separation may have implications for parent-child relationships and exchanges, with consequences for individuals' wellbeing, improving our understanding of the association between separation and support exchanges becomes paramount. Method: Using data from the German Family Panel (pairfam, 2009-2016, N=4,340 respondents and 13,481 observations), we estimate a range of support exchanges between parents and children simultaneously using generalized linear regression models with correlated random terms across equations. Additionally, we assess whether these associations vary by the timing at which parental separation occurred and social background. Results: Parental separation is negatively associated with support between parents and children, especially for fathers. However, no significant differences emerge between mothers who separated and mothers who did not in receiving material support from their children. The negative associations between parental separation and support between child and fathers are lower if parental separation occurs when the child is an adult. Further, when mothers are highly educated, separation has a less negative association with downward material support. Conclusion: Overall, lower intergenerational assistance among families experiencing separation suggests increasing disadvantage for those already disadvantaged.
... In addition, communities look down on women who have experienced marital dissolutions and on their children [35]. Consequently, marital disruption often brings negative repercussions for children's upbringings, health and well-being and academic and social performances [40][41][42]. Thus, at the population level, marital disruption is a public health issue [43]. ...
Background
This study examines the relationship between women’s ages at their first marriages and the marital disruption among those who experienced child marriages and those who did not as well as identifies some compromises that women make in their remarriages after previous marital disruptions.
Methods
The data of 57,476 women from the 2019 Bangladesh Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey were analysed using multivariable logistic and linear regressions. Women’s compromises in their remarriages were examined by determining the age differences with their current husbands, whether the current husband has another wife and their attitudes toward the justification of intimate partner violence by husbands.
Results
Almost 65% of women experienced child marriage, and its prevalence is higher in rural (66.5%) than in urban areas (59.2%). The probability of marital disruptions decreases as the ages at the first marriages rise among women who experienced child marriages and increase among women who did not. Women living in rural areas are less likely than those living in urban areas to report marital dissolution (AOR 0.81, 95% CI 0.73–0.90). Also, women who completed relatively more years of education or have greater wealth are less likely to report marital disruptions and those who never gave birth are more likely to report these (AOR 3.54, 95% CI 3.14–3.99). Women who remarried after previous disruptions are more likely to report that their new husbands are, on average, almost 12 years older than they are, and have another wife. Also, those who experienced marital disruptions are more likely than others to believe that husbands are justified in beating their wives in certain circumstances.
Conclusion
The odd of marital disruption decreases with the ages at first marriage among women who experienced child marriage and increase among women who did not. There is a curvilinear relationship between women’s ages at their first marriages and the probability of marital disruptions. Making compromises in remarriages after disruptions is common. Because marital disruption is increasing, appropriate policies are needed to address the adverse outcomes of divorces that ensue.
... Social scientists have employed a variety of theories to explain how union dissolution affects adults and children (cf. Amato, 2000Amato, , 2010. From the economic standpoint conveyed in the resource model (Johnson & Wu, 2002;McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994;Soons et al., 2009), separation is related to economic costs such as the loss of a second income, lost economies of scale and foregone earnings due to increased childcare obligations. ...
Based on panel data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) for the years 1998 to 2018, we investigate the association between paternal childcare and parental economic well-being after separation in Germany. Referring to the post-separation year, we explore a sample of 176 separated couples with resident mothers and nonresident fathers, where fathers differ in their childcare involvement during weekdays. We propose equivalized annual net household income after exchange of alimony and child maintenance payments among the ex-partners as a novel indicator of parental economic well-being. Our study reveals the importance of considering both paid and received alimony, and child maintenance payments in analyzing post-separation economic well-being. Fathers’ childcare engagement during weekdays is not significantly associated with maternal post-separation income. Resident mothers take up the major or even full childcare burden. On the other hand, fathers with non-zero childcare hours manage to combine some paternal engagement with intensified employment. Mothers, however, fail to gain substantial ground on the labor market, which is unlikely to be due to differences in human capital, but rather due to persistently high maternal childcare involvement. We conclude that neither high levels of own resources, nor receiving help with childcare during the week shield resident mothers from economic deterioration after separation.
... Divorce introduces many changes and transitions to family life (Amato, 2010). Elements of family life that change include housing, custody of children, shifts in family finances, the possible addition of new members to the family system and even changes in personal and family identity. ...
We examine the role that identity plays in the divorce decision-making process according to interviews with wave one respondents of the National Divorce Decision-Making study. Our sample (n = 30) consisted of men and women who were actively thinking about getting divorced. We present the results of a grounded theory approach to understanding the process of thinking about divorce and the role one’s identity may play in that decision-making process. Participants considered different aspects of their identity such as their identity as a part of their marriage, how they see themselves, how they believe others see them, and whether the decision to divorce is viewed by them as a “failure.” Further, we recommend language therapists might use to assess and explore the influence of personal identity when interviewing people who are considering divorce.
... Among maritally disrupted women, 73.7% were widowed, 8.0% were divorced, and 18.3% were separated. Prevalence of martial disruption were higher among older women (age [35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49] compared to that in younger women (aged [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34]. Prevalence of tobacco consumption among women in our sample was 5.1%. ...
Marital disruption defined as widowhood, divorce, or separation, has adverse consequences for women’s health and wellbeing. Extant evidence, however, is primarily available for older women or in developed country settings. Consequences of marital disruption for younger women in the developing countries is relatively less visited. The aim of this cross-sectional study is to assess whether maritally disrupted women of reproductive age (18–49 years) had differential risk of tobacco-use compared to their married counterparts. Using nationally representative data from India, we estimated multivariable logistic regressions to obtain the odds in favor of tobacco-use for maritally disrupted women. We found that compared to women remained in marriage, maritally disrupted women were 1.5 times (95% CI: 1.4–1.6) more likely to consume tobacco. The higher risk of tobacco-use of maritally disrupted women was evident in both younger (age 18–34) and older (age 35–49) cohorts. The results were robust across urban and rural areas, high- and low- education groups, and poor- and non-poor households. The higher odds of tobacco-use among maritally disrupted women persisted even after accounting for household fixed effects. The study findings thus, have implications for strengthening targeted tobacco control policies and health promotion among maritally disrupted women in low-and-middle income countries.
... Parental separation might amplify these gender differences in children's time use. While studies have often found small gender differences in how parental separation affects child development (Amato, 2010), paternal absence was found to induce boys to higher aggressiveness or anti-school attitudes, with boys showing greater difficulties than girls in adjusting to divorce in the new family arrangements, often in single-mother families (Hetherington & Stanley-Hagan, 1997;Legewie & DiPrete, 2012;Rutter, 1987). Ethnographic research reveals how adolescent girls under specific processes of family change embrace a feminine identity based upon studying hard, being attentive and caring for others (Epstein, 1998). ...
How divorce influences parents’ and children’s time use has received very little scientific attention. This study uses high-quality longitudinal time-diary data across six waves from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children to examine how parental separation shapes parent–child time and children’s daily activities. Results show that separation leads to a strong increase of gender inequalities in parents’ time use. After separation, mother–child time doubles, two-parent time declines by three, and father–child time remains low. Parental separation also leads to a decline in children’s time allocated to educational activities (e.g., studying, reading) and an increase in children’s time in unstructured activities (e.g., TV watching, video gaming, smartphone use). Additionally, the effect of separation on children’s time use is twice as large for boys than for girls, with gender gaps in children’s unstructured time increasing over time. Finally, mother–child time returns to similar pre-separation levels over time, but only after 4 years since separation occurred. The study findings are robust to different panel regression strategies. Overall, this study implies that parental divorce negatively affects children’s developmental time use, especially among boys, and leads lone mothers to experience increasing ‘time penalties’ associated with gender inequalities in society.
... Cohen, 1987;Kiecolt-Glaser, 2018). Studies have shown that one out of every two couples who marry for the first time divorce (Amato, 2010). In investigating the cause of divorce, in addition to social, economic, and legal factors, attention to personal and psychological causes is of particular importance (Chida, Hamer, Wardle, & Steptoe, 2008;Damota, 2019). ...
... A few papers find no effect of parental separation on child outcomes, including Björklund and Sundström (2006), Björklund, Ginther and Sundström (2007) and Ginther and Pollak (2004) when income is controlled for. For recent literature reviews, see Amato (2010) or McLanahan, Tach and Schneider (2013). ...
This paper investigates the effect of parental separation on children's allocation of their time and on the time spent with their parents. Based on detailed time‐use diaries from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics – Child Development Supplement, I estimate an individual fixed‐effect model and find that being in a single‐parent family decreases time with a parent accessible by 18% of a standard deviation (3 hours 30 minutes per week). Time spent with both parents together and alone with the non‐custodial parent is greatly affected, but the custodial parent partially compensates for this decrease. The decrease in time with a parent actively engaged in activities is, however, not statistically significant. Younger children continue spending as much time with their parents after separation. Effects on boys and girls differ, but this difference depends on the type of parental time investment we consider. Time spent with a grandparent acts as a recovery channel in single‐mother families. Time with a step‐parent increases but does not lead to an accumulation of parental time.
... Moreover, families without fathers are associated with child abuse and behavioral problems (Amato, 2010). Father absence creates a vicious cycle of poverty in many households, and many children suffer as a result (Mutegi, 2015;Carstens, 2014). ...
The Children's Act, 38 of 2005, (South Africa) states that children in need of care and protection face social ills such as father absence and in addition some children abuse alcohol and drugs, among other things. The Act defines the essence of parental responsibilities and rights regarding children, and fatherhood in this context can be a notable trending topic. This research posits that fatherhood occurs predominantly within the context of families. Notwithstanding this, the nature of fatherhood is changing within an African context. Suspicion of attributing to men any positive aspect is evidenced within the social sciences, let alone appreciation of the role of men in families. The present project results show that transforming fatherless children and fatherhood can be ambiguous and challenging in a world dominated by men. Yet, this paper suggests and embraces faith as a strength perspective where God is seen as Father and parent apropos establishing his Fatherhood in the hearts of men, which characterizes the fatherhood of men, while it is life-giving in a world staggered by father absence. Father absence impedes children from receiving and giving love, and therefore, the manifest constant behavioural problems of children. Poor academic performance and self-perception are linked to father absence and children may suffer due to a lack of educational support and access to health care. Social workers try to collaborate with fathers and mothers to nurture a healthy relationship with their children. Unfortunately, these efforts fail in many instances and children become vulnerable due to a lack of care and love from both parents.
... Boşanma uyumu ise alanyazındaki boşanma uyum tanımlarından yola çıkarak boşanma sonrası bireylerin oluşan yeni durum ve koşullara göre kendisini etkin bir şekilde düzenleyebilmesi ve yaşamdan doyum alması olarak tanımlayabiliriz. Alanyazın incelendiğinde boşanmaya uyumu; yaş, eğitim, cinsiyet, ekonomik durum, evlilik süresi, boşanmayı kimin başlattığı, sosyal destek ağı, kişisel psikolojik kaynaklar, çocukların varlığı, boşanma üzerinden geçen süre, yeni romantik ilişkinin varlığı, aktif sosyal bir yaşam, psikolojik destek alma, eski eşle ilişkiler, boşanmayı kabul ve boşanma kararına yönelik düşünce, olumlu bir yasal süreç, geleceğe yönelik hedeflerin olması, boşanmaya yönelik inanç ve tutumlar, affetme, kişilik özellikleri, içsel ve dışsal nedensellik yüklemeleri, bir iş ya da meslek sahibi olma gibi birçok faktörün etkilediği görülmektedir (Amato, 2000(Amato, , 2010Amato & Kieth, 1991;Amato & Previti, 2003;Booth &Amato, 1991;Demo &Acock, 1996;Gove & Shin, 1989;Kitson, 1992;Madden-Derdich & Arditti, 1999;Perrig-Chiello, Hutchison & Morselli, 2014;Plummer & Koch-Hattem, 1986;Sayan-Karahan, 2012;Thomas & Ryan, 2008;Wang & Amato, 2000;Yılmaz, 2002). ...
Bu araştırmada, Sistemik Aile yaklaşımına (SAY) dayalı olarak hazırlanan Boşanmaya Uyum Grup Psikoeğitim Programının (BUPP) boşanmış kadın ve erkeklerin boşanmaya uyum düzeylerine etkisi ve bu etkinin altı hafta süre ile zamana bağlı kalıcılığı incelemiştir. Araştırmada deney ve kontrol gruplu ön test-son test ve izleme test modeline dayalı 2x3’lük yarı deneysel desen kullanılmıştır. Deney grubunda 11 (5 erkek, 6 kadın), kontrol grubunda 11 (4 erkek 7 kadın) olmak üzere toplam 22 boşanmış kişi araştırmaya katılmıştır. Katılımcılara Boşanmaya Uyum Ölçeği (BUÖ) ön test-son test ve izleme testi olarak uygulanmıştır. Araştırmada deney grubuna dokuz oturum ve her oturum 120 dakika olan SAY’a dayalı olarak hazırlanan BUPP’ı uygulanırken, kontrol grubuna herhangi bir işlem uygulanmamıştır. Araştırmanın bulguları nicel veriler kullanılarak elde edilmiş ve nitel verilerle desteklenmiştir. Araştırmanın nicel verilerini analiz etmede ANCOVA ve t testi kullanılmıştır. Araştırmanın bulguları incelendiğinde deney ve kontrol gruplarının ön test-son test ve izleme test puan ortalamaları arasında anlamlı bir fark bulunduğu ve bu farkın deney grubu lehine olduğu görülmüştür. Sonuç olarak boşanmaya uyum psikoeğitim programının boşanmış kişilerin boşanmaya uyum düzeylerini arttırmada etkili olduğu ve bu etkinin altı hafta boyunca devam ettiği bulunmuştur.
... Education also has important effects on family outcomes, including increased likelihood of marriage (Schneider, 2011), reduced likelihood of single parenthood (Lundberg et al., 2016), and increased marital stability (Amato, 2010). Married individuals consistently exhibit higher rates of political participation than others (Leighley & Nagler, 2013). ...
The college-educated are more likely to vote than are those with less education. Prior research suggests that the effect of college attendance on voting operates directly, by increasing an individual’s interest and engagement in politics through social networks or human capital accumulation. College may also increase voting indirectly by leading to degree attainment and increasing socioeconomic status, thus facilitating political participation. However, few studies have empirically tested these direct and indirect pathways or examined how these effects vary across individuals. To bridge this gap, we employ a nonparametric causal mediation analysis to examine the total, direct, and indirect effects of college attendance on voting and how these effects differ across individuals with different propensities of attending college. Using data from the 1979 and 1997 cohorts of National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth, we find large direct effects of college on self-reported voting and comparably smaller indirect effects that operate through degree completion and socioeconomic attainment. We find the largest impact of college on voting for individuals unlikely to attend, a pattern due primarily to heterogeneity in the direct effect of college. Our findings suggest that civic returns to college are not contingent upon degree completion or socioeconomic returns. An exclusive focus on the economic returns to college can mask the broader societal benefits of expanding higher education to disadvantaged youth.
... The family environment is vital for children to grow up with happiness, love, and understanding, leading to the complete and harmonious development of the child's personality (Brockington et al., 2011). In this regard, marital issues, such as matrimonial instability and marital dissolution, have a determinantal effect on child development while enhancing the possibility of adjustment issues (Amato, 2010;Kouros et al., 2008) and some extant psychological problems. Marital instability refers to a couple's propensity to dissolve an existing marriage, even though dissolution may not be the outcome (Booth et al., 1983). ...
The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between marital instability, parenting practice, and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorders in children. Purposive sampling techniques were followed to select 386 parents from Dhaka city as a sample in this research. Bangla version of matrimonial instability scale, the parenting practice four-factor questionnaire was administered to measure the participants' marital instability and parenting style. Bangla version of the ADHD rating scale was also applied to the same respondents to identify their children's attention deficit hyperactivity symptoms. Obtained data were analyzed by employing descriptive statistics, correlation, and stepwise multiple regression methods. The findings of this study revealed that matrimonial instability of parents (59.9%), involvement in parenting style (16.6%), and authoritarian parenting (0.8%) are the best predictors of developing attention deficit hyperactivity symptoms among the children. The results of this research have been interpreted in the light of past studies.
... In a study of 18,523 couples examining risk factors for relationship dissolution, Røsand et al. (2014) discovered that women were more likely to divorce if they were dissatisfied with the relationship. Thus, relationship dissatisfaction may be attributable to the increased rate of divorces across the U.S. Researchers have consistently estimated the lifetime rate of divorce for married couples to be between 40-50% (Amato, 2010;CDC, 2018). According to Gottman (1994), the ending of a relationship poses significant ramifications for couples; specifically: separation and divorce have strong negative consequences for the mental and physical health of both spouses. ...
The present study applies a Gottman Method Couples Therapy (GMCT) intervention, the Trust Revival Method (TRM), to couples' relationships following an affair, using a randomized control waitlist design. Couples (n= 84) were recruited nationally and internationally and subsequently randomized to either an immediate treatment group or a 3-week waitlist group. A 6-month post-trial follow-up was conducted for couples that completed treatment. The revised Specific Affect Coding System (Coan & Gottman, 2007) was used to code couples' interactions during a 10–15-minute conflict discussion. Significant effects were found when comparing couples' codes against treatment retention and later relationship functioning. Couples also completed various assessments three times during the study, including the 480-question Gottman Connect (GC) assessment tool. Couples on the 3-week waitlist completed one additional pre-treatment assessment before their 3-week wait commenced. Multivariate statistics with appropriate univariate follow-up procedures were employed to determine group differences between the control and experimental groups. Follow-up procedures were also conducted to investigate any differential rates of symptom reduction or treatment success. The researcher used path analysis procedures following Actor Partner Interdependence Model (APIM- Kenny et al., 2020) assumptions to examine the effects of the intervention on overall relationship satisfaction and subsequent affair recovery, revealing significant effects between assessment scores and coded behaviors. Clinical significance testing also showed significant effects in specific relationship domains. The results add to the current research literature, validating GMCT as an effective broad-based couple therapy approach to repair relationships following infidelity. Implications for clinical practice, graduate training, and research are discussed.
ISBN: 9798841795896
... There are also practical implications of these findings for online dating users and platforms. Divorce rates have been declining since the 1980s, yet some scholars still estimate that as many as 40% to 50% of marriages fail (Amato, 2010;Cherlin, 2010). Online dating is linked to more stable and satisfying marriages (Cacioppo et al., 2013), but until now the process through which this happens had not been fully explored. ...
This study takes a relational stage approach to understanding the role of online dating in the progression of relationships toward marriage. Fifty interviews were conducted with individuals from across the United States (ages 21–62; M age = 33.42) who were married or engaged to someone they met via online dating. The results present a comprehensive view of online dating through 4 stages and 13 subcategories of relationship development. Participants described meeting through a process of technology-enabled relationship initiation. Once the relationship escalated offline, they entered a period of multimodal development that demonstrated the enduring influence technology continued to have after meeting in person. Throughout this process, participants stressed the role of online dating platforms in breaking down barriers and reinforcing divisions. Three outcomes for marriage were also uncovered. Findings from this study suggest that online dating is changing more than where couples meet and have theoretical and practical implications.
... This result corroborates the assertion that an individual's social standing predicts their attitude. It was also supported by the findings of Amato (2010) that an individual's degree of social networks predicts their likelihood of giving a helping hand. Also this study also confirms the studies of Moynihan, Pandey and Wright(2012) who demonstrated that employees who have considerable control over their daily schedule are more likely to have pro-social attitude and to engage in pro-social behaviors. ...
... In addition, over 80% of the respondents in the sample were residing in a home with both of their biological parents who were still married. This is incredibly rare as interracial couples are significantly less likely to be married or stay married than parents of monoracial children (Amato, 2010;Brown et al., 2018). More discordance in socialization by parent race may have surfaced if the sample consisted of more youth with unmarried or divorced parents. ...
Multiracial-Black youth are one of the fastest-growing populations in the U.S., but little is known about their racialized developmental experiences. This study uses Latent Profile Analysis to identify patterns of parental racial socialization among Biracial Black-White adolescents and explore whether those profiles relate to demographics and racial identity outcomes. The sample consisted of 330 Biracial Black-White adolescents living in the U.S. (67% boys; Mage = 14.8, SD = 1.5). The analysis yielded a four-profile solution based on (1) the frequency of socialization messages youth received and (2) the concordance of those messages across both of their parents (i.e., whether socialization frequency is similar or different between Black and white parents). Profile membership differed based on youth gender and racialized appearance (i.e., whether youth presented physically as Black, white, or racially ambiguous). Ultimately, adolescents in the profile with the highest frequency and concordance of parental racial socialization reported more adaptive racial identity attitudes including a sense of pride in being Black and Biracial. Youth in that profile also felt the most comfortable navigating the intersections of their racial identities, which coupled with racial pride has promising implications for their development and wellbeing.
... In Germany, the share of children who live in a household with a stepparent before age 18 increased from 6% for the 1971-73 birth cohort to 11% for the 1991-93 birth cohort (Kleinschlömer & Krapf, 2021). Previous studies have shown that children whose parents are divorced are disadvantaged with regard to their educational success (Francesconi et al., 2010), their psychological health (Amato, 2010), and their relationships with their parents (Amato, 2005). Similar disadvantages have been observed for children who live with a parent who has repartnered (Brown, 2006;Gennetian, 2005;Ginther & Pollak, 2004;King, 2009). ...
Objective: The paper examines the effects of parental repartnering (including residential and nonresidential partnerships) on children’s well-being. Background: An increasing number of children experience the repartnering of their parents. While previous research has focused on coresidential repartnering, this paper also considers the transition to a steady nonresidential (living apart together – LAT) partnership of formerly single parents. Specifically, the paper examines whether these transitions differ in their effect on children. Method: This study uses data from the German Family Panel (pairfam) to analyze the effects of parental repartnering on children’s emotional and behavioral well-being. The children in the sample were seven to 16 years old. Individual fixed effects regressions were estimated for two types of parental partnership transitions: the formation of a LAT partnership and the formation of a coresidential partnership. Results: The results show that children's emotional symptoms increased in response to both parental LAT repartnering and coresidential repartnering, whereas children’s conduct problems increased only in response to parental coresidential repartnering. Conclusion: These findings suggest that the formation of a nonresidential partnership by a parent can affect children's emotional well-being, and thus should be considered when analyzing post-separation family development.
Dieser Beitrag fokussiert auf Familien, in denen ein Elternteil ohne Partner*in mit einem oder mehreren Kindern zusammenlebt. Diese Familien erleben zahlreiche Belastungen wie Armutsgefährdung und Vereinbarkeitsprobleme, die sich negativ auf Wohlbefinden und Gesundheit auswirken können. Trotz veränderter Sorgemodelle trägt ein Großteil der Alleinerziehenden die überwiegende Alleinverantwortung für ihre Kinder. Die Einstellungen zu Ein-Eltern-Familien sind nach wie vor von normativen Vorurteilen geprägt, auch wenn die Akzeptanz gestiegen ist.
This paper investigates the link between non-standard employment (NSE) and the risk of partnership dissolution, applying event history analysis to data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey for the period 2001–2016. It moves beyond previous studies by (a) considering a broader range of employment types, including fixed-term and casual contracts, temporary agency work and part-time work, and (b) by comparing the effect of NSE in nonmarital cohabitations and marriages. The results show that the effect differs by employment type, gender and partnership type. For example, among women, part-time work is associated with a decreased dissolution risk compared to full-time work in marriages but not in cohabitations. Temporary employment is linked to increased dissolution risks compared to permanent employment in both partnership types, with the association partly being stronger for casual and/or agency work than for fixed-term contracts.
The aim was to examine the mental and physical health trajectories of mothers, fathers, and children before and after union dissolution. Register data covering the entire Norwegian population, and including information on consultations with general practitioners in 2006–2018, were used. Constant unobserved characteristics were controlled for with individual fixed effects. As judged by the number of consultations, mothers’ and fathers’ mental health deteriorates before the dissolution but improves immediately afterwards. In contrast, a worsening mental health among children before the dissolution is followed by an even more adverse development afterwards. There is only modest evidence of predissolution increases in noninfectious physical diseases, but more clearly rising numbers afterwards especially for mothers and daughters. Less adverse trends are seen for infections, although mothers experience a sharp temporary increase at the breakup time. On the whole, mothers’ health is more adversely affected by dissolution than that of fathers. Daughters may have a disadvantage compared to sons, but results vary across model specifications. The results suggest that effects on children's health do not operate through parents’ health. With respect to union type, the health changes before and after dissolution of a consensual union are not very different from those before and after marital separation.
Up to now, we know only a little about the causal effect of international migration on partnership stability, with the few existing analyses being restricted to internal migration or international migration from less developed countries to the Global North. Using longitudinal data on German citizens [the German Emigration and Remigration Panel Study plus the German Family Panel (pairfam)], this study contributes to existing literature primarily in two ways: first, by comparing international migrants to nonmigrants at origin and applying the appropriate methods (Entropy Balancing and Discrete Time Proportional Hazards Models), the causal effect of international migration was studied. Second, assessing (non‐)mobile German citizens allows looking at these effects in the context of a highly industrialized welfare state. Additional to the general effect of international migration, differences between emigrants and remigrants are studied — which has not been done before, except for the Latin American context. To advance our understanding of the underlying mechanisms, the role of further migration characteristics is investigated. Findings show that international migration increases the risk of union dissolution compared to no migration and that the risk of union dissolution is higher for remigrants compared to emigrants. The underlying migration reasons play an additional role in explaining the risk of union dissolution.
It is often assumed that parental union dissolution leads to more egalitarian gender ideologies among children. Yet evidence on variations in gender ideologies by family structures is scant and based mostly on cross-sectional data. This study offers a closer examination of whether any effect of parental union dissolution can be explained by parents restructuring work and care responsibilities along more egalitarian lines after separation. Drawing on longitudinal data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study, this study applies fixed-effects panel models to estimate the effects of parental union dissolution on gender ideologies of 6,577 adolescents between ages 11 and 14. Parental separation is found to result in more egalitarian gender ideologies toward female employment among boys but not among girls. In line with the role restructuring argument, the positive effect of separation on egalitarianism is driven by boys, whose fathers had rarely had full responsibility for childcare before separation. By highlighting differential effects and possible mechanisms, the findings offer a more nuanced understanding of the implications of increasing deinstitutionalization of family relationships.
Living with an unmarried mother is consistently associated with adjustment issues in adolescence, but these associations can vary by both time and place. Following life course theory, this study applied inverse probability of treatment weighting techniques to data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1979) Children and Young Adults study (n = 5,597) to estimate various treatment effects of family structures through childhood and early adolescence on internalizing and externalizing dimensions of adjustment at age 14. Young people who lived with an unmarried (single or cohabiting) mother during early childhood and adolescence were more likely to drink and reported more depressive symptoms by age 14 than those with a married mother, with particularly strong associations between living with an unmarried mother during early adolescence and drinking. These associations, however, varied according to sociodemographic selection into family structures. They were strongest for youth who more closely resembled the average adolescent living with a married mother.
The start and end of a romantic relationship are associated with substantial changes in life satisfaction. Yet, whether Big Five personality traits moderate these relationship transition effects is hardly known. Such knowledge helps to understand individual variation in relationship transition effects and provides the possibility to further test the stress and social support explanations of these effects. Our fixed effects regressions on 28 waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel 1991-2018 show that Big Five traits moderate the effects of relationship transitions on life satisfaction to a limited extent. More neurotic men display a more negative effect of separation, and more neurotic and more agreeable women reveal a more negative effect of widowhood on life satisfaction. Big Five traits do not moderate the effect of the start of cohabitation on life satisfaction. Our findings support the stress perspective of relationship transition effects most and identify emotionally unstable individuals as a particularly vulnerable group.
Supplementary information:
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10902-022-00573-8.
In this article I have a lofty aim: to change how we think about the gold standard of research in social science. Complex global social problems --wicked problems-- such as a global refugee crisis, global poverty, persistent gender and social inequality, and most recently, a worldwide pandemic, have shown the need for scholars to develop different approaches that meaningfully capture complexity. Yet, social science research typically avoids complex, interconnected, and contextualized realities. Instead, reductionist approaches, and particularly randomized control trials, are often touted as the gold standard of research. Within our complex, messy social world, however, I suggest a different benchmark for the gold-standard in social research is needed, and I propose one that entails two key components. The first component requires us to foreground our research question with methodological mindfulness, a deep contemplation of the pre-research process, so that we more fully understand the process by which we make our knowledge claims. This is a step that I call epistemologically-informed research. The second component entails an approach that requires us to embed our research problem in the social, political, economic, and geographic ecologies that contextualize it. This is an approach that I call ecologically-informed research. Drawing on the insights of feminist, critical and ecological scholars, I argue that research informed by a critical, ecological epistemology is a vital and still under-appreciated approach in answering questions facing us today. By providing an overview of Institutional Ethnography, I show how critical, ecological approaches have the unique capacity to provide compelling explanations for how social relations shape complex phenomenon, substantially enriching the depth of our understanding on a range of topics relevant to social scientists.
Introduction: Divorce is an ancient and social problem in society that the widespread consequences continue long after to this incident.
Aim: The present aim this study was to examine the effectiveness of emotion regulation training on promoting mental health and rumination of divorce women.
Method: This present research is a simi-experimental plan in which pretest-posttest with the control group has been used. The statistical population of this study is formed of divorced women under the auspices of Kohgiloyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Welfare Organization in 2021. For this purpose a total of 50 women were selected by purposive sampling method and randomly assigned in control and experimental groups. Instruments were Rumination Response Style (RRS) and General Health Questionnaire (GHQ). The experimental group participated in emotion regulation training to 90–minute 10 sessions during the two months. The data were analyzed by SPSS-22 and multivariate covariance.
Results: The mean and standard deviation of age were 39.4 and 8.25, respectively. The results showed that after controlling the effects of covariate variables (pretest), effectiveness of emotion regulation training on promoting health and rumination components include somatic symptom of (F=17.45, P>0.01), anxity (F=25.52, P>0.01), social performance (F=26.99, P>0.01), depression (F=15.47, P>0.01), rumination response (F=75.13, P>0.01) and distraction respons (F=34.42, P>0.01) divorce womens were significant.
Conclusion: On the basis of the finding of this study it can be conclouded that emotion regulation training could be an effective intervention in enhancing mental health and reducing rumination. Thus, it is suggested that such intervention be used in family counsling and mental health centers.
To extend work careers, it is important to focus on all working-aged people including young adults. The aim of this study was to identify typical patterns of work participation among young adults after their first entry into the labour market and to examine whether the timing of entry together with parental and own socio-economic position and health predict early work participation. More in-depth understanding of early careers and their early determinants is important to plan targeted interventions and to promote more stable work participation among young adults.
We used the Finnish Birth Cohort 1987 including data from several registers from all 59,476 children born in 1987 as well as their parents, followed until 2015. We estimated a mixture Markov model that allowed for joint identification of latent classes of labour-market attachment, estimation of labour-market transitions within classes, and prediction of class membership using childhood social and health-related determinants.
We observed that the first entry into the labour market as measured by six months in continuous employment was not a permanent entry for many, not only due to negative reasons such as unemployment and ill health but also due to more voluntary reasons such as studies. Individuals entering the labour market at a later age were more likely to be in continuous employment thereafter. More advantaged background predicted exits due to studies or – when following a late entry – stable employment, while disadvantaged background factors predicted more unstable work and long-term exits from the labour market.
The aim of this study was to investigate (a) the extent to which child maltreatment co-occurs with parental separation and (b) associations between different types of child maltreatment and various types of separation-associated interparental conflict. Professionals working with children ( N = 785) reported each case of suspected child maltreatment they observed during a 3-month period and indicated whether parental divorce or separation was about to take place or had taken place. This resulted in 530 reported cases that matched the definitions of child maltreatment for which information on parental relationship status was available. Most of the maltreated children (60%) also experienced (impending) parental separation. In 69% of these cases child maltreatment was associated with parental separation. Particularly, cases of emotional neglect, and emotional abuse co-occurred with parental separation. In addition, four clusters of separation-associated interparental conflict were distinguished— No observed conflict, Non-physical conflict, Verbal and physical conflict, and Multiple conflict—which were associated with child and family characteristics and specific types of child maltreatment. The results of this study suggest that child maltreatment often co-occurs with parental separation, especially when there is a considerable amount of interparental conflict.
İntihar, dünya çapında önemli bir halk sağlığı sorunu olmuş ve sosyoekonomik faktörler ile intihar oranları arasındaki ilişkiyi belirlemek için artan sayıda araştırma yapılmıştır. Bu çalışmanın amacı, sosyoekonomik faktörlerin yaşa göre ayarlanmış, erkekler, kadınlar ve gençlerde intihar oranlarını etkileyip etkilemediğini tespit etmektir. Bu amaca ulaşmak için 1996-2015 dönemi için 47 ülkeye ait yıllık verileri kullanılmıştır. Panel veri ekonometrik analizinden elde edilen sonuçlar, işsizlik, doğurganlık, alkol tüketimi, boşanma, kadınların çalışma oranlarının intihar oranları üzerinde önemli etkileri olduğunu göstermektedir.
Background: The National Health Insurance (NHI) program is the Indonesian government's national health program. However, health insurance coverage has not been maximized. This study aims to analyze the factors associated with health insurance coverage in Indonesia.
Methods: Retrospective cross-sectional data were obtained from the Indonesian Demographic and Health Survey 2017. A total of 39,580 respondents were selected using two-stage stratified cluster sampling. The data come from the DHS Questionnaire Phase 7. In this study, we explored age, education level, wealth quintiles, residence, the number of children who are alive, marital status, current employment status, earnings, and health insurance status in relation to health insurance coverage. Then, we analyzed the data using chi-squared and binary logistic analyses.
Results: The prevalence of health insurance coverage in the Indonesian population is 62.3%. Respondent aged 15-24 years [AOR=0.88; 95% CI=0.77-1.00], secondary education level [AOR=0.44; 95% CI=0.41-0.47], poorer wealth index [AOR=0.76; 95% CI=0.71-0.82], live in rural area [AOR=0.78; 95% CI=0.75-0.82], divorced [AOR=0.72; 95% CI=0.63-0.83] were less likelihood to have health insurance. Conversely, the respondent who received earnings [AOR=1.25; 95% CI=1.18-1.32] was more likely to have health insurance.
Conclusion: This finding pointed to education level, economic status, and demographic area such as respondents who lived in rural areas should more pay attention to NHI. Intervention through the provision of appropriate information about NHI should be promoted.
This study examined links between family structure transitions and children's academic, behavioral, and emotional outcomes in a sample of 238 divorcing mothers and their sons in Grades 1-3. Multiple methods and agents were used in assessing family process variables and child outcomes. Findings suggest that greater accumulations of family transitions were associated with poorer academic functioning, greater acting-out behavior, and worse emotional adjustment for boys. However, in all three cases, these relationships were mediated by parenting practices: Parental academic skill encouragement mediated the relationship between transitions and academic functioning, and a factor of more general effective parenting practices mediated the relationships between transitions and acting out and emotional adjustment.
This study investigates how family structure is associated with adolescent drug use and how parenting, peer use, religiosity, and neighborhood problems may mediate the relationship. The authors use structural equation modeling to examine the relationship between family structure and drug use across race, and examine potential mediators. Using data from a nationally representative sample of adolescents, the authors find that family structure has little impact on adolescent drug use once potential mediators are accounted for. Though there is minimal direct effect of family structure on adolescent drug use, family structure is significantly correlated with the four mediators. Although there is some variation in the impact of these mediators on adolescent drug use across race/ethnicity, comparison of structural models suggests these variations are not statistically significant. Possible limitations of the findings are discussed.
As patterns of union formation and dissolution in adult lives become complex, the living arrangements of American children are becoming increasingly fluid. With a sample (N = 12,843) drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this study attempted to capture this complexity by mapping out children's family structure histories across their early life course, investigating the implications of these arrangements for their general adjustment, and finally, identifying family processes that explained these associations. The findings suggest that a sizable minority of young people experience dynamic family structure arrangements. Moreover, family structure at adolescence best predicted later emotional distress, and family structure at adolescence plus an indicator of cumulative family instability across childhood best predicted current marijuana use. More so than indicators tapping social control, levels of family connectedness and parent—adolescent relationship quality were key conduits for these associations.
Data are used from both waves of the National Survey of Families and Households to test the hypothesis that individuals who experience many parental relationship transitions will often reproduce these behaviors as adults by dissolving multiple marriages. This hypothesis is confirmed, and the findings are essentially unchanged when controlling for socioeconomic characteristics of both respondents and their families of origin. These results are consistent with the family change hypothesis, which attributes the deleterious consequences of nonintact parenting to the strain of experiencing family structure transitions rather than the state of living without a male role model or the poverty often induced by parental divorce. Finally, the findings reconceptualize the often-studied intergenerational transmission of divorce. Neither family structure of origin nor offspring marital behavior can be treated as dichotomies: Multiple family structure transitions make things worse for children, and many of these children will end more than one marriage.
In this article, we analyze how the marital biography is affecting mortality in Germany today (N = 12,484). We find support for temporal selection into marriage for both genders, but the effect is stronger for men. In addition, protection through marriage results from long-term accumulation of survival advantages and from the attenuation of higher mortality risks that occur immediately after a transition into or out of a marriage. Moreover, women are more likely to keep survival advantages from previous marriages and to forget about survival disadvantages from divorces and widowhood.
The long-term effects of parental divorce on individual's mental health after the transition to adulthood are examined using data from a British birth cohort that has been followed from birth to age 33. Growth-curve models and fixed-effects models are estimated. The results suggest that part of the negative effect of parental divorce on adults is a result of factors that were present before the parents' marriages dissolved. The results also suggest, however, a negative effect of divorce and its aftermath on adult mental health. Moreover, a parental divorce during childhood or adolescence continues to have a negative effect when a person is in his or her twenties and early thirties.
This study takes a multifaceted approach to examining reasons for the well-noted mental health advantage of the married. The authors examine whether socioeconomic resources and psychosocial resources explain this advantage for three aspects of mental health by comparing the consistently married to different types of unmarried individuals, as well as the remarried. The authors find that even though the consistently married generally fare better than all the other groups, the reasons for this advantage not only varied by category of marital status but also, for any specific group, these reasons are sometimes varied depending on the aspect of mental health being examined. This study demonstrates that not only is it advisable for researchers to use a variety of outcome measures to understand the mental health advantage of the married, they should also consider how different resources may explain this advantage, depending on the outcomes and groups being examined.
A vast literature has examined the effects of marital disruption on child well-being, however medically attended childhood accidents/injuries have not been considered as an outcome. This article investigates this association as well as possible intervening pathways using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-linked mother-child file. Findings reveal that marital disruption decreases girls’ accidents/injuries. Boys are not directly affected. Parenting practices, childhood aggression, and precipitous drops in household income appear to do little to the relationship between marital disruption and childhood accidents/injuries for boys. For girls, however, the potential benefits of a marital disruption are suppressed until considering mother’s use of discipline and household income decline. Results are discussed in terms of stress theory and the effect of mother-daughter versus mother-son dynamics following marital disruption.
Drawing on 5 waves of the Health and Retirement Study, we examine the influence of the marital life course on the prevalence and incidence of cardiovascular disease among 9,434 middle-aged individuals. Results show that compared to continuously married persons, both men and women with a marital loss have significantly higher prevalence of cardiovascular disease at baseline. Men and women, however, differ in the effects of marital loss on the incidence of cardiovascular disease over the course of the study. Women with a marital loss have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease in late midlife compared to continuously married women, whereas marital loss is not associated with men’s risk of cardiovascular disease. Emotional distress and socioeconomic status account for the higher risk of cardiovascular disease among divorced women.
This study investigated the association between family instability and children's problem behavior during the transition to first grade. In a sample (n = 1,015) drawn from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, we found that a quarter of sample members experienced at least one family transition between birth and age 6. Instability was also related to family structure at birth: those born into cohabiting parent families experienced the most instability, followed by those born into single mother families and finally, those in two-biological married parent families. Children who experienced instability had higher teacher and observer reports of problem behaviors than those from stable family structures. Finally, differences in problem behavior associated with family instability varied by family structure at birth and the emotional, social and material resources in the family.
This study, drawing on approximately 1,100 males from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, demonstrates the importance of genetics, and genetic-environmental interactions, for understanding adolescent delinquency and violence. Our analyses show that three genetic polymorphisms - specifically, the 30-bp promoter-region variable number tandem repeat (VNTR) in MAOA, the 40-bp VNTR in DAT1, and the Taq1 polymorphism in DRD2 - are significant predictors of serious and violent delinquency when added to a social-control model of delinquency. Importantly, findings also show that the genetic effects of DRD2 and MAOA are conditional and interact with family processes, school processes, and friendship networks. These results, which are among the first that link molecular genetic variants to delinquency, significantly expand our understanding of delinquent and violent behavior, and they highlight the need to simultaneously consider their social and genetic origins.
Shortly after marriage, 56 couples provided data on physical aggression and other predictors of marital adjustment. At 6-month intervals over the next 4 years, spouses reported on their marital quality and stability. Results indicated that marital dysfunction was more common among aggressive than among nonaggressive couples (70% vs. 38%) and among severely aggressive than among moderately aggressive couples (93% vs. 46%). Aggression remained a reliable predictor of marital outcomes after the authors controlled for stressful events and negative communication. These findings help to refine developmental models of marital dysfunction, which often overlook the role of aggression, and can provide information for prevention programs for marital distress, which typically do not distinguish between aggressive and nonaggressive couples.
This book is concerned with the question of how families matter in young people’s development - a question of obvious interest and importance to a wide range of readers, which has serious policy implication. A series of key current topics concerning families are examined by the top international scholars in the field, including the key risks affecting children, individual differences in their resilience, links between families and peers, the connections between parental work and children’s family lives, the impact of childcare, divorce, and parental separation, grandparents, and new family forms such as lesbian and surrogate mother families. The latest research findings are brought together with discussion of policy issues raised.
Regardless how you interpret the statistics, the divorce rate in the United States is staggering. But, what if the government could change this? Would families be better off if new public policies made it more difficult for couples to separate? This book explores a movement that emerged over the past fifteen years, which aims to do just that. Guided by certain politicians and religious leaders who herald marriage as a solution to a range of longstanding social problems, a handful of state governments enacted "covenant marriage" laws, which require couples to choose between a conventional and a covenant marriage. While the familiar . . .
In this chapter, I examine how marital conflict, divorce, and remarriage affect parenting, parent-child and sibling relationships, and the adjustment of children as they move from early to mid-adolescence. The association between marital and family discord, marital transitions and child adjustment is well established. Children and adolescents living in contentious homes or divorced or remarried families in comparison; with those in harmonious nondivorced families are higher in externalizing behavior problems (antisocial behavior, aggression, noncompliance) and internalizing behavior problems (inhibited, withdrawn behavior, anxiety, depression) and lower in social responsibility, self-esteem, and social and cognitive competence (see Amato, 2001; Amato & Keith, 1991a; Cummings, Goeke-Morey, & Rapp, 2001; Hetherington, Bridges, & Insabella, 1998; Hetherington & Stanley-Hagan, 2000; 2002; McLanahan, 1999, for reviews). Although conduct disorders decline in young adulthood, substance abuse, alcoholism and troubles with the law remain higher in youths from conflicted, divorced and remarried families. Youths who have experienced their parent's marital transitions also are more likely to be single parents, to experience lower socioeconomic and educational attainment and to be on welfare. In addition, they have more problems with family members, in intimate relations, in marriage and in the workplace. Their divorce rate is higher and their reports of general well-being and life satisfaction are lower (Amato, 1999; 2001; see Chapter 8, in this book); Amato & Booth, 1996; Amato & Keith, 1991b; Hetherington, 1999a; 2003; Hetherington & Kelly, 2002).
This study reviews program materials being used in over half of the U. S. counties that have documented court-connected educational programs for divorcing parents. Program documents were examined to determine sources of materials, conceptual foundations, topics presented, teaching strategies, and evaluation efforts. Data analysis identified 50 different topic areas covered by programs, reliance on passive or limited parental involvement teaching strategies, and formative, rather than summative, evaluation efforts. Recommendations for the design of court-connected divorce education programs are included.
Previous research has demonstrated associations between exposure to parental divorce and marital discord while growing up and children's psychological distress in adulthood. Few studies, however, have attempted to explain these associations. Three pathways are evaluated through which family disruption and discord may affect offspring's well-being: children's socioeconomic attainment, children's marital and relationship stability, and the quality of children's relations with parents. Using 17-year longitudinal data from two generations, results show that divorce and marital discord predict lower levels of psychological well-being in adulthood. Parent-child relationships mediate most of the associations between parents' marital discord and divorce and children's subsequent psychological outcomes. Marital discord appears to erode children's emotional bonds with mothers, whereas both divorce and marital discord appear to erode children's emotional bonds with fathers. The results highlight the continuing importance of parent-child ties for children's well-being in early adulthood.
We use data from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth (N = 4,547) to investigate racial and ethnic differences in risk factors for marital disruption, with a particular emphasis on premarital cohabitation. We find that the nature and strength of the estimated effects of several risk factors for disruption differ across groups. In particular, premarital cohabitation is positively associated with subsequent marital disruption among non-Hispanic White women but not among non-Hispanic Black or Mexican American women. Little of the observed gaps between groups in levels of disruption, however, appears to be attributable to differences in premarital cohabitation. In addition to improving our understanding of marital disruption, this research contributes to a growing literature emphasizing heterogeneity across groups in the meaning and function of cohabitation.
The present study examines the early development of marriage for a representative sample of urban white couples and black couples. We are interested in predicting the stability of these marriages over the first 14 years of marriage. First, we assess whether objective social and economic conditions account for divorce over time. These factors focus on oppressive social conditions, lower status positions in society, and challenges of parenthood and family responsibilities. Next, we concentrate on perceived interactive processes between spouses that are critical for maintaining a relationship over time. We postulate that race, gender, and time act as contexts in which to understand the quality and impact of structure and the perceptions of interaction in predicting divorce. Results indicate that both race and education are critical to the risk of divorce over 14 years. Perceived interactional processes are also important to divorce, but often depend on the contexts of race and gender.
Results from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth indicate that marriages contracted after 1980 are becoming more stable. This article examines several individual characteristics in search of an explanation for increasing stability. A person-year file is created and logistic regression is used to determine which covariates account for the negative effect of year in a model predicting the likelihood of marital dissolution. Increasing experience of premarital sex, premarital birth, cohabitation, and racial and religious heterogamy are detracting from marital stability. However, rising age at marriage and, to a lesser degree, increased education are associated with increasing marital stability. These latter effects more than counterbalance the factors associated with instability leading to an overall decline in the rate of marital dissolution.
Some research reports that divorce exerts greater negative effects on the mental health of Whites compared with African Americans. However, this literature is limited by inadequate attention to temporal dimensions of marital dissolution, in particular stages of the process and duration in each stage. This study incorporates stage and duration into an examination of race differences in the effects of marital dissolution on symptoms of depression and substance abuse or dependence. Data are drawn from the 1983 Piedmont Health Survey (PHS) of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Epidemiologic Catchment Area Program (N = 1,941). Results suggest that the mental health effects of marital dissolution are not weaker for African Americans; rather, the nature and timing of the effects vary by race. Furthermore, gender interacts with race to influence the impact of separation and divorce on mental health.
Although previous research has noted the detrimental impact of parents' marital disruption on children's schooling, less is known about whether such detriments are observable prior to the disruption. Based on two waves of a nationally representative longitudinal data set, this study has found that even prior to family dissolution, both boys and girls from families that subsequently dissolve perform less well than their peers whose parents remain married. Families at the predisruption stage are also characterized by a shortage of financial, cultural, human, and social capital, even after demographics are controlled. In addition, some parental investment measures yield a smaller educational return for students whose families subsequently dissolve than for those whose parents remain married. Our results also indicate that the negative postdisruption effects on children's academic achievement can be either largely or completely predicted by performance and investment differences at the predisruption stage.
This study uses a nationally representative sample of individuals involved in dual-earner marriages to examine the relationship between perceived fairness of housework completion, marital happiness, and divorce. The authors expected to find that perceived inequality in the division of housework causes tension between spouses that leads to decreased marital quality for both men and women. They further speculated that an unfair division of household labor might contribute to a greater likelihood of divorce. Results indicate that perceived inequity in the division of household labor is negatively associated with both husbands[#X2019] and wives[#X2019]reported marital happiness but is positively associated with the odds of divorce among wives only. Little evidence indicates that marital happiness mediates this relationship. The authors propose that unfair perceptions of the division of household labor not only decrease women[#X2019]s marital quality but also lead to role strain that makes them more likely to end unsatisfying marriages.
In this article, we ask the question: Does a wife's economic independence destabilize marriage and heighten the risk of divorce? Using longitudinal data from the National Survey of Families and Households, we find only weak support for the economic independence thesis. There is an initial positive association between a wife's percentage contribution to family income and divorce, but the relation is reduced to nonsignificance as soon as variables measuring gender ideology are introduced into the model. Our analysis indicates that measures of marital commitment and satisfaction are better predictors of marital dissolution than measures of economic independence. This strongly suggests that the independence effect found in prior research, which did not include controls for marital quality, may have been measuring the role of wives' economic independence in exiting bad marriages, not in exiting all marriages.
Using panel data from 9,252 adolescents in the National Education Longitudinal Study, this study finds that among children who experience parents’ marital disruption during late adolescence, European, Asian, and African American adolescents exhibit wider and greater maladjustment both before and after the disruption than their Hispanic American counterparts. This finding lends general support to the hypothesis of prevalence of disadvantages, although it is less consistent with the hypothesis of prevalence of divorce. Moreover, whereas Asian American adolescents in predisrupted families are more vulnerable to a shortage of family social resources, their African American peers are affected more by a shortage of financial/human resources. Finally, postdisruption effects on non-Hispanic American adolescents are either completely or partially attributable to predisruption factors.
Period divorce measures can misrepresent the underlying behavior of birth cohorts as changes in cohort timing produce changes in period probabilities of divorce. Building on methods used to adjust period fertility and marriage measures, we adjust U.S. period divorce rates for timing effects, calculating a timing index for every year between 1910 and 2000. The adjusted probability of divorce, PMED*, increases nearly linearly from 1910 through 1990, remaining at about that level through 2000. Period measures greatly exaggerate divorce risks from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s, but understate them at other times. Adjusted values for recent years do not suggest a decline in the likelihood of divorce, with year 2000 values indicating a divorce probability of 0.43 – 0.46.
We use data from the Current Population Survey to investigate racial differences in recent patterns of marital disruption. Although a leveling in the trend of disruption has occurred for White women since 1980, our results suggest less stabilization in rates of disruption among Black women. We also observe significant differences by race in the effects of key compositional factors on the risk of marital disruption, including age at marriage, education, premarital childbearing, and region of residence. Differences in population composition with respect to these characteristics, however, cannot alone explain the overall racial gap in disruption.
This paper assesses the effects of family structure on the risk of a first premarital birth for a sample of women from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The sample reflects the family structure and family formation experiences of a cohort of women who were at risk of out-of-wedlock childbearing during the 1980s and early 1990s. We focus on assessing the effects of family structure in the presence of correlated unmeasured family effects, which are identified through the use of sibling data. The availability of multiple sibling respondents per family permits identification of family-level unobserved heterogeneity in a multi-level context of individuals nested within families. Our models account for family-specific sources of unobserved heterogeneity in the processes generating family structure and nonmarital childbearing, and provide estimates of the association between these sources of unobserved heterogeneity along with the effects of family structure and other covariates. We find that accounting for the correlation between unobserved family-level effects in processes generating family structure and first premarital birth leads to attenuated estimates of the effects family structure on the risk of first premarital birth. This suggests that other family-level factors may play a mediating role in generating both family structure and nonmarital childbearing.
Since the 1970s, policy-makers and advocates for mothers, fathers, and children have attempted to remedy some of the inherent problems of divorce—such as conflict over the children, delegation of decision-making responsibiities, poor communication skills, and lack of knowledge about children experiencing divorce—through state-level legislation for divorcing or divorced families. These policies have taken the forms of mandated mediation, legal presumptions for particular custodial arrangements, child support orders, divorce education programs for parents, and parenting plans.
Mending Broken Families introduces social policies for divorced families by discussing their history and provides the first comprehensive assessment and review of their effectiveness.
One hundred couples were followed for 13 years from the premarital period well through the primary risk period for divorce. Results of discriminant analysis indicated that couples who remain satisfied, become distressed, and divorce can be reliably classified on the basis of premarital data. Further, both previously identified demographic risk factors and couple interaction variables contributed to classification accuracy, suggesting that both types of variables play important roles in relationship outcomes. The method employed here addresses weakness in previous studies by: (a) following couples for an extended period after marriage, (b) using multiple validated self-report and observational measures, and (c) making predictions simultaneously for divorced, distressed, and satisfied couples.
The relationship between women's employment and the risk of divorce is both complex and controversial. The role specialization (or interdependence) view of marriage argues that the gains to marriage for both partners decrease when both are in the labor force, and hence women's employment destabilizes marriage. In contrast, the economic opportunity hypothesis asserts that female labor force participation does not intrinsically weaken marriage, but gives women resources that they can use to leave unsatisfactory marriages. Here we use data from the two waves of the National Survey of Families and Households to conduct the first large-scale empirical test of those conflicting claims. Our results provide clear evidence that, at the individual level, women's employment does not destabilize happy marriages but increases the risk of disruption in unhappy marriages.
Because sexual fidelity is a key norm regulating the institution of marriage, any occurrence of extramarital sex (EMS) could potentially contribute to marital dissolution. Although the relationship between EMS and marital dissolution has been demonstrated in past research, studies have yet to show if the occurrence of EMS causes a marriage to break down, or if an unraveling marriage prompts spouses to seek alternative sexual partners. In this 17-year longitudinal study (N= 1,475), we assessed whether EMS precedes or follows deteriorations in marital quality. We estimated the effects of marital happiness and divorce proneness on EMS, the effects of EMS on subsequent marital happiness and divorce proneness, and the effects of all three variables on divorce. Our results indicate that divorce proneness predicts the occurrence of EMS. Results also suggest that EMS lowers subsequent marital happiness, increases subsequent divorce proneness, and increases the odds of divorce. We conclude that infidelity is both a cause and a consequence of relationship deterioration.
The question of whether family structure consequences on school achievement are the same across racial and ethnic groups is examined using longitudinal data on 10,606 teens from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Based on life course theory, this article uses indicators of the family structure trajectory, such as family structure duration in adolescence and the number and timing of family changes, to predict self-reported grade point average (GPA) and to examine differences in effects among non-Hispanic White, Black, and Hispanic adolescents. Results show that the negative effects of time lived with a single mother and nonparents are reduced for Black and Hispanic adolescents, whereas having a recent family change leads to a larger drop in GPA for Blacks. Racial variation in stress, social support, and school functioning explain most race differences. For minority adolescents, negative consequences of family structure are largely attenuated by race-specific social supports and educational advantages.
The authors investigate the direction of the relationship between marital happiness and wives’ full-time employment using the 1987 to 1988 and 1992 to 1994 waves of the National Survey of Families and Households. First, the authors predict change in wives’ employment between the two waves using marital happiness and other Time 1 characteristics. The results show that shifting into full-time employment is more likely for unhappily married than for happily married wives. Second, they examine how changes in wives’ employment between Times 1 and 2 influence marital stability and changes in marital happiness. The authors find that contrary to frequently invoked social and economic theories, wives’ full-time employment is associated with greater marital stability. Nonetheless, changes in wives’ employment have no significant effect on how marital quality changes between Times 1 and 2.
Mediation and other forms of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) grew rapidly in the last few decades as a result of high divorce rates, frequent conflicts between parting parents, the resulting administrative burden on courts, and especially concerns about damaging effects on children and postdivorce family relationships. This article focuses on our longitudinal research involving randomized trials of mediation and adversary settlement to support the conclusions that mediation can: (1) settle a large percentage of cases otherwise headed for court; (2) possibly speed settlement, save money, and increase compliance with agreements; (3) clearly increase party satisfaction; and (4) most importantly, lead to remarkably improved relationships between nonresidential parents and children, as well as between divorced parents—even twelve years after dispute settlement. The key “active ingredients” of mediation are likely to include: (1) the call for parental cooperation over the long run of co-parenting beyond the crisis of separation, (2) the opportunity to address underlying emotional issues (albeit briefly), (3) helping parents to establish a businesslike relationship, and (4) the avoidance of divisive negotiations at a critical time for family relationships. We call for more research on mediation and other forms of ADR, as well as a renewal of the excitement and optimism of the “first generation” of mediators, qualities that are “active ingredients” in any successful social or psychological intervention.
The positive association between growing up in a nonintact family and the risk of a first premarital birth has been interpreted by researchers as consistent with three hypotheses: (1) a childhood socialization hypothesis - that women who grow up in a mother-only family during early childhood are socialized in ways that result in a high risk of a premarital birth; (2) a social control hypothesis - that the supervision of adolescents is more difficult in single-parent families than in two-parent families; and (3) an instability and change hypothesis - that a premarital birth is a response to the stresses accompanying changes in a woman's family situation. Although these hypotheses imply distinct behavioral mechanisms, adjudicating between them has proven difficult, in part because researchers have relied on static measures of family structure. We use data from the National Survey of Families and Households and continuous-time hazard models to investigate the effects on premarital births of dynamic family measures that reflect a woman's family situation between birth and age 19. Our findings are consistent with the instability and change hypothesis, but provide little support for the socialization hypothesis and the social control hypothesis.
This study assessed the association between conflict between divorced parents and their attendance or nonattendance at a divorce education program. A telephone interview was done with 160 individuals who participated in the education program and 59 individuals who did not. Both males and females in the nonattendance group had higher conflict scores than the attendance group. Attendance at the divorce education class was found to be associated with whether a subject will return to court or not. Those who attended were less likely to return to court related to the divorce.
This study assesses divorce adjustment of custodial mothers. Measures designed to assess psychological functioning of the custodial mother and family functioning are employed. Fifty-six custodial mothers completed the assessment measures. The results indicate that custodial mothers who report healthier levels of overall family functioning on the Divorce Adjustment Inventory-Revised (DAI-R), demonstrate healthier levels of psychological functioning as assessed by the Symptom Checklist 90-Revised (SCL-90-R) than custodial mothers who report lower levels of overall family functioning. In addition, divorce education (Families in Transition) participants had better family conflict and resolution skills, more favorable divorce conditions, and a more positive view of the divorce transition at the end of the program than did nonparticipants (DAI-R scale scores). Overall, these results provide a baseline for reported symptomatology among divorced women, confirm the efficacy of a divorce education program in reducing psychological symptoms, and support the use of the Divorce Adjustment Inventory-Revised in assessing postdivorce family functioning.
Analyses addressing 2 sets of hypotheses were examined. First, it was hypothesized that the number of parenting transitions would define a continuum that would covary with the magnitude of the adjustment problems experienced by boys in the family. Intact, single-mother, stepfather, and multiple-transition families were selected from 206 predominantly lower- and working-class families in the Oregon Youth Study and compared on a comprehensive measure of boys' adjustment at Grade 4. Boys who had experienced multiple transitions showed the poorest adjustment. This relationship was still significant after controlling for socioeconomic status (SES) and per capita income. In the 2nd set of analyses, the hypothesis that maternal antisocial behavior (MAB) contributes directly to relationship transitions and indirectly to child adjustment problems was tested in a structural equation model. A mediational model including MAB and parenting practices was used to predict child adjustment measured 2 yrs later. Number of transitions was highly related to MAB. The antisocial mother was most at risk for transitions and unskilled parenting practices, which in turn placed her son at risk for poor adjustment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The author argues that it is what children experience outside the home, in the company of their peers, that matters most. Parents don't socialize children: children socialize children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Substantial evidence indicates that marital dissolution has negative consequences for adult well-being. Because most research focuses on the average consequences of divorce, we know very little about factors that moderate this association. The present study tests the hypothesis that the effects of marital dissolution on adult well-being are greatest for those with young children in the home at the time of marital dissolution. Analysis of data from the National Survey of Families and Households (N= 4,811 men and women married at the baseline interview) supports this hypothesis, especially among women. For women without young children, marital dissolution appears to have few negative consequences for psychological well-being. Differential exposure to secondary stressors that accompany marital dissolution partly explains these patterns.
We used national, longitudinal data from 2 generations to assess 2 explanations for the intergenerational transmission of marital instability, one based on relationship skills and the other based on marital commitment. Parental divorce approximately doubled the odds that offspring would see their own marriages end in divorce. Offspring with maritally distressed parents who remained continuously married did not have an elevated risk of divorce. Divorce was most likely to be transmitted across generations if parents reported a low, rather than a high, level of discord prior to marital dissolution. These results, combined with other findings from the study, suggest that offspring with divorced parents have an elevated risk of seeing their own marriages end in divorce because they hold a comparatively weak commitment to the norm of lifelong marriage.
A process-oriented approach to parental divorce locates the experience within the social and developmental context of children's lives, providing greater insight into how parental divorce produces vulnerability in some children and resiliency in others. The current study involves prospectively tracking a nationally representative sample of Canadian children of ages 4–7 and living with two biological parents at initial interview in 1994 (N = 2,819), and comparing the mental health trajectories of children whose parents remain married with those whose parents divorce by 1998. Results from growth curve models confirm that, even before marital breakup, children whose parents later divorce exhibit higher levels of anxiety/depression and antisocial behavior than children whose parents remain married. There is a further increase in child anxiety/depression but not antisocial behavior associated with the event of parental divorce itself. Controlling for predivorce parental socioeconomic and psychosocial resources fully accounts for poorer child mental health at initial interview among children whose parents later divorce, but does not explain the divorce-specific increase in anxiety/depression. Finally, a significant interaction between parental divorce and predivorce levels of family dysfunction suggests that child antisocial behavior decreases when marriages in highly dysfunctional families are dissolved.