Parental Divorce, Marital Conflict and Children's behavior Problems: A Comparison of Adopted and Biological Children

Abstract

We used adopted and biological children from Waves 1 and 2 of the National Survey of Families and Households to study the links between parents' marital conflict, divorce and children's behavior problems. The standard family environment model assumes that marital conflict and divorce increase the risk of children's behavior problems. The passive genetic model assumes that parents' and children's behavior are linked because of genetic transmission from parents to children. The child effects model assumes that parents' marital distress is the result of (rather than the cause of) children's behavior. Our analysis shows that the associations between parents' divorce and marital conflict and children's behavior problems are comparable for biological and adopted children. Moreover, the primary direction of influence appears to run from parents to children. Taken together, these results provide support for the standard family environment model. A large number of studies conducted during the past three decades have shown that children with divorced parents have an elevated risk of a variety of problems, including conduct disorders, eniotional disturbances, difficulties with social relationships and academic failure (Amato 2000). This topic has been of interest to social scientists from a variety of disciplines, including demography (Cherlin 1999), family sociology (Booth and Amato 2001), education (Pong, Dronkers and Hampden-Thompson 2003), criminology (Thornberry, Smith, Rivera, Huizinga and StouthamerLoeber 1999), economics (Havemann 1994), and child psychology (Emery 1999). Similarly, studies have shown that in the absence of divorce, exposure to chronic, unresolved conflict between parents increases the risk of comparable problems for children (Amato and Booth 1997; Emery 1999; Krishnakumar and Buehler 2000). Not all children who experience divorce or who grow up with chronically discordant parents develop serious problems. Nevertheless, these findings indicate that further research on the causal linkages between these variables is warranted.