Parental breakup and children's outcomes in the United States

• Published date: 01 October 2022
• Author: Gülgün Bayaz‐Öztürk
• Date: 01 October 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12662

RESEARCH

Parental breakup and children’s outcomes in the

United States

Gülgün Bayaz-Öztürk

Department of Social Science, New York City

College of Technology, City University of New

York, Brooklyn, New York, United States

Correspondence

Gülgün Bayaz-Öztürk, Department of Social

Science, New York City College of

Technology, Brooklyn, NY 11201, USA.

Email: gbayazozturk@citytech.cuny.edu

Abstract

Objective: This study investigates differences between

health trajectories of children of divorce or separation and

children of continuously married families.

Background: Overthepast50 years,duringwhichfewer

children grew up in families with both biological parents,

there has been an increased academic interest to under-

stand how children fared in alternative family structures.

Method: This study uses retrospective illness histories from

a recent supplement to the Panel Study of Income Dynam-

ics to conduct a longitudinal analysis of parental breakup

and child health.

Results: Children of divorce were found to exhibit higher

prevalence of severalillnesses during adolescence and young

adulthood than children of continuously married families.

Controlling for family resources and parental mental health

moderated the relationship between parental breakup and

negative health outcomes. However, significant associations

between parental breakup and children’s health outcomes

remained.

Conclusion: This study provides a general outline of how

parental breakup is associated with children’s health trajecto-

ries. Although the analysis controls for an extensive set of var-

iables by employing a quasi-experimental method, caution in

interpreting these findings as causal relationships is warranted.

Implications: Given the evidence presented, it is vital that

parents and children have easy access to coping-focused

preventive interventions designed to reduce adverse effects

of divorce on children.

KEYWORDS

children’s health, divorce/separation, fixed-effects estimation,

longitudinal analysis, retrospective data

Received: 20 November 2020Revised: 27 October 2021Accepted: 4 December 2021

DOI: 10.1111/fare.12662

© 2022 National Council on Family Relations.

1802 Family Relations. 2022;71:1802–1816.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/fare