The Effects of Children of Divorce Living with Neither Parent on the Academic Achievement of Those Children

Abstract

This study builds upon past research which has examined the effects of divorce on the academic achievement of children living in single-parent families. This study uses the NELS 1988 and 1992 data sets to examine the effects of children of divorce living with neither parent. As America has increased in its diversity of family structures, children of divorce from neither-parent families have become more common. Yet there is almost no research dealing with the effects of divorce for children who end up in neither-parent families. The results of this study indicate that children of divorce from neither-parent families perform more poorly than their counterparts in either divorced single-parent families or intact families. Although controlling for SES reduces the effects for children of divorce living with neither parent, most of the effects remain statistically significant even with the inclusion of the SES variables, especially for the twelfth grade students. The possible reasons for this academic performance are discussed.