Explaining the Higher Incidence of Adjustment Problems among Children of Divorce Compared with Those in Two-Parent Families

Abstract

We examined the extent to which differences in adolescent adjustment problems between divorced and intact families can be explained by loss of family income, parental conflict, the psychological adjustment and parenting practices of the custodial parent, and level of involvement of the noncustodial parent. The importance of these factors was assessed ky hierarchial regression with a sample of 328 intact and 206 divorced families. The results indicated that quality of mother @ parenting and of father@ involvement in parenting explains the association between divorce and boys' externalizing problems, whereas quality of mother @ parenting and postdivorce conflict explain the relationship between divorce and girls' externalizing problems. Divorce elevates a girl @ risk for depression because it increases the chances that her mother will become depressed, which in turn reduces the quality of her parenting. Including the various explanatory variables did not reduce the association between divorce and boys' internalizing problems. Boys with divorced parents tended to be more depressed than those from two-parent families regardless of the psychological adjustment, level of conflict, or quality of parenting manifested by their parents. Key Words: child depression, delinquency, divorce. A variety of studies have reported that children of divorced parents experience more adjustment problems than children who grow up in nuclear families. This research suggests that parental divorce increases the chances that a child will have difficulty with school, engage in early sex, suffer depression, commit delinquent acts, and use illicit substances (see Amato& Keith, 199 lb; McLanahan B McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994; Simons et al., 1996). Further, recent research indicates that the effects of parental divorce continue to be evident in adulthood. Several studies have reported that adults who experienced parental divorce as children have poor psychological adjustment, lower socioeconomic attainment, and greater marital instability than adults reared in a nuclear family (see Amato & Keith, 1991 a). Although the evidence indicates that parental divorce is associated with a two- to threefold increase in risk for adjustment problems, it is important to note that the majority of children whose parents divorce show no lasting negative effects (Emery, 1988; Simons et al., 1996). Researchers have proposed a variety of explanations for the correlation between family structure and child adjustment. These explanations emphasize factors such as family income, the psychological adjustment and quality of parenting of the custodial parent, level of parental conflict, and degree of involvement by the nonresidential parent. Some evidence supports each of these mechanisms. With a few exceptions, however, past research has investigated only one or two of the explanations at a time. This procedure has a major methodological flaw because the various factors posited as an explanation for the association between parental divorce and child adjustment are likely to be correlated. Thus, one can determine the contribution of a particular hypothesized mechanism only after controlling for the impact of the others. When proper controls are utilized, the effects that have been reported for some explanations may turn out to be spurious or indirect through other factors. The present study used multivariate procedures to examine the importance of each of the more frequently cited explanations for the association between divorce and child adjustment. Our analyses focused on two dimensions of child adjustment-externalizing problems and internalizing problems. Externalizing problems involve aggressive and delinquent behavior, whereas internalizing problems involve emotional distress such as depression. It is important that both types of outcomes be considered because the factors that account for the relationship between family structure and child externalizing problems may differ from those that link fan-tily structure to child internalizing problems. …