A Longitudinal Analysis on the Effects of Remarriage Following Divorce on the Academic Achievement of Adolescents

Abstract

Using the NELS data set from the 1988-1992 period, this study used a longitudinal design to assess the effects of remarriage following divorce on the academic achievement of children. Using data on a sample of 1,064 eighth-grade students who were in single-parent divorced families in 1988, the academic achievement of children whose custodial parent remarried during the time of the study, was compared to the academic achievement of those children remaining in divorced single-parent homes. The results of this study indicate that when SES, race, and sex were controlled for, children of divorce from the reconstituted families scored lower than their counterparts in divorced single-parent homes on two of four of the measures of academic achievement. In addition, children whose custodial parent remarried during the course of the study achieved at about the same level academically as the remainder of the children of divorce from reconstituted families. The significance of these results is discussed.