Divorce leaves lasting scars on children, major recent study finds

A recent study has revealed that children who experience parental divorce face significant long-term consequences, including lower income, increased mortality risk, and a better likelihood of teenage pregnancy.

The research, conducted by economists Andrew C. Johnston, Maggie R. Jones, and Nolan G. Pope, tracked children born within the US between 1988 and 1993, and examined their lives across key indicators like income levels, college enrollment, incarceration rates, and mortality.

The authors employed a sibling comparison method, allowing them to measure how divorce impacts children otherwise inside the same family depending on their age on the time of separation.

The findings, based on an evaluation of greater than five million tax records, suggest that divorce directly contributes to opposed outcomes for kids, beyond existing family issues or economic drawback.

The study found that divorce is related to a dramatic decline in household income. Before a breakup, families typically earned $90,000 to $100,000 annually. Following a divorce, that figure drops to around $42,000 – a loss that persists for a minimum of a decade, with family earnings maintaining a deficit of around 30% from what they were before the divorce.

This financial strain translated into longer working hours for each parents – fathers increased their working hours by 16%, and moms by 8% – meaning less contact time with their children. 

Divorce often results in residential instability, researchers found. Around 35% of kids in divorced families relocated in the primary 12 months of the divorce, and over time, the physical distance between non-custodial parents, often fathers, and their children increased dramatically. By 10 years post-divorce, the common distance between parents exceeded 200 miles.

In tandem, children tended to maneuver into lower-income neighbourhoods. On average, neighbourhood household incomes dropped by 7% after a divorce, indicating a measurable decline in living standards.

Using sibling comparisons, the study found that the younger the kid on the time of divorce, the more pronounced the negative effects in comparison with their older siblings.

Those who went through divorce in early childhood earned 9% to 13% less by their mid-to-late twenties in comparison with siblings who were older when their parents separated.

The researchers equated this drop in income to “losing a 12 months of education” or growing up in a significantly worse neighbourhood.

Other indicators of kid wellbeing also showed negative trends. The teen birth rate amongst girls rose sharply post-divorce, from around 7 to 13 births per 1,000 annually, while child mortality rates rose from 10 to fifteen deaths per 100,000 children, a 35% to 55% rise.

These patterns held even when controlling for pre-existing family conditions, suggesting a direct causal effect from the divorce itself.

The study identifies three primary pathways through which divorce harms children: reduced household income, living in neighbourhoods with lower living standards, and greater distance between children and non-resident parents. Together, these aspects accounted for 25% to 60% of the opposed outcomes observed.

Grant Bailey, research associate on the Institute for Family Studies, argues that they should not merely unwanted effects but integral to understanding the broader impact of divorce.

The researchers stressed that their results should not the product of temporary family crises or one-off events like job loss. Instead, they argue, divorce typically follows deep-rooted tensions inside the marriage, and the information show no evidence of economic or health shocks prior to the split.

According to Bailey, these findings challenge a preferred narrative in contemporary American media that focuses on the empowerment or liberation of divorcing individuals without addressing the results on children.

While divorce may indeed profit individual parents in certain situations, this study underscores the often-overlooked costs for the following generation.

Although further research is required to totally explore the numerous dimensions of divorce’s impact, this study makes one point clear: parental separation will not be a neutral event in a baby’s life but moderately sets off a cascade of changes – economic, geographic, and emotional – that may shape their future for years to come back.

“This recent study provides further evidence that lasting marriages matter, especially for child well-being,” Bailey concluded.