The influence of parental divorce, parental temporary separation and parental relationship quality on children’s school readiness

Garriga, Anna and Pennoni, Fulvia (2017): The influence of parental divorce, parental temporary separation and parental relationship quality on children’s school readiness.

Abstract

We use the first three waves of the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS), a longitudinal and representative UK survey, to explore the interrelationship between parental divorce, parental temporary separation and parental relationship quality on cognitive abilities and psychological dimensions of the children at age five. By using an appropriate imputation method, we apply the augmented inverse propensity weighted estimator to test the hypothesis that parental divorce may be a positive experience for children with parents in high-distress unions, while the dissolution of low-distress unions may have a negative effect. Overcoming some of the limitations of previous research, we find that that the dissolution of high-quality parental unions has the most harmful effects on children, especially concerning conduct problems. We also find that children who experienced parental temporary separation - which has been absent in most previous research - have more conduct and hyperactivity problems than children from stable or divorced families.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: children's school readiness, parental divorce, parental temporary separation, missing values, parental relationship quality, robust estimator.
• Subjects: J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J13 - Fertility ; Family Planning ; Child Care ; Children ; Youth

References

Amato, P.R., 2010. Research on divorce: Continuing trends and new developments. J. Marriage Fam. 72, 650–666.

Amato, P.R., 2001. Children of divorce in the 1990s: an update of the Amato and Keith (1991) meta-analysis. J Fam Psychol. 15, 355-370.

Amato, P.R., 2000. The consequences of divorce for adults and children. J. Marriage Fam. 62, 1269–1287.

Amato, P.R., 1993. Children's adjustment to divorce: Theories, hypotheses, and empirical support. J. Marriage Fam. 55, 23-38.

Amato, P.R., and Keith, B., 1991. Parental divorce and the well-being of children: a meta-analysis. Psychol. Bull. 110, 26-46.

Amato, P.R., Hohmann-Marriott, B., 2007. A comparison of high-and low-distress marriages that end in divorce. J. Marriage Fam. 69, 621–638.

Amato, P.R., Johnson, D.R., Booth, A., Rogers, S.J., 2003. Continuity and change in marital quality between 1980 and 2000. J. Marriage Fam. 65, 1–22.

Amato, P.R., Loomis, L.S., Booth, A., 1995. Parental divorce, marital conflict, and offspring well-being during early adulthood. Soc. Forces 73, 895–915.

Amato, P.R., Rogers, S.J., 1997. A longitudinal study of marital problems and subsequent divorce. J. Marriage Fam. 59, 612–624. doi:10.2307/353949

Andress, H.J., Hummelsheim, D., 2009. When Marriage Ends: Economic and Social Consequences of Partnership Dissolution. Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, UK.

Aseltine Jr, R. H., Kessler, R. C., 1993. Marital disruption and depression in a commu nity sample. J Health Soc Behav., 237-251.

Averdijk, M., Malti, T., Eisner, M., Ribeaud, D., 2012. Parental separation and child aggressive and internalizing behaviour: An event history calendar analysis. Child Psychiatry Hum. Dev. 43, 184–200.

Bhrolcháin, M.N., 2001. “Divorce effects” and causality in the social sciences. Eur. Sociol. Rev. 17, 33–57.

Booth, A., Amato, P.R., 2001. Parental predivorce relations and offspring postdivorce Well-Being. J. Marriage Fam. 63, 197–212.

Booth, A., Amato, P.R., 1991. Divorce and psychological stress. J. Health Soc. Behav. 32, 396–407. doi:10.2307/2137106

Brooks-Gunn, J., Han, W.-J., Waldfogel, J., 2010. First-year maternal employment and child development in the first seven years. Monogr. Soc. Res. Child Dev. 75, 7–9. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5834.2010.00562.x

Brown, S.L., 2004. Family structure and child well-being: the significance of parental cohabitation. J. Marriage Fam. 66, 351–367.

Bussell, D.A., 1996. A pilot study of African American children’s cognitive and emotional reactions to parental separation. J. Divorce Remarriage. 24, 1–22.

Cao, W., Tsiatis, A.A., Davidian, M., 2009. Improving efficiency and robustness of the doubly robust estimator for a population mean with incomplete data. Biometrika. 96, 723-734.

Cherlin, A.J., Furstenberg, F.F., Chase-Lansdale, L., Kiernan, K.E., Robins, P.K., Morrison, D.R., Teitler, J.O., 1991. Longitudinal studies of effects of divorce on children in Great Britain and the United States. Science. 252, 1386–1389. doi:10.1126/science.2047851

Cross-Barnet, C., Cherlin, A., Burton, L., 2011. Bound by children: intermittent cohabitation and living together apart. Fam. Relat. 60, 633–647. doi:10.1111/j.1741-3729.2011.00664.x

Cummings, E.M., Davies, P.T., 2011. Marital Conflict and Children: An Emotional security perspective. Guilford Press, New York.

Deater-Deckard, K., Mullineaux, P.Y., Beekman, C., Petrill, S.A., Schatschneider, C., Thompson, L.A., 2009. Conduct problems, IQ, and household chaos: a longitudinal multi-informant study. J. Child Psychol. Psychiatry. 50, 1301–1308. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2009.02108.x

Diener, E., Helliwell, J.F., Kahneman, D. (Eds.) 2010. International Differences in Well-Being. Oxford University Press, New York. 

Duncan, G.J., Dowsett, C.J., Claessens, A., Magnuson, K., Huston, A.C., Klebanov, P., Pagani, L.S., Feinstein, L., Engel, M., Brooks-Gunn, J., Sexton, H., Duckworth, K., Japel, C., 2007. School readiness and later achievement. Dev. Psychol. 43, 1428–1446. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.43.6.1428

Elam, K.K., Sandler, I., Wolchik, S., Tein, J.-Y., 2015. Non-residential father–child involvement, interparental conflict and mental health of children following divorce: A person-focused approach. J. Youth Adolesc. 45, 1–13.

Elliott, C.D., Smith, P., McCulloch, K., 1997. Technical Manual British Ability Scales II. NFER-NELSON Publ. Co, Windsor. Berks. Entwisle, D.R., Alexander, K.L., Olson, L.S., 2005. First frade and educational attainment by age 22: A new story1. Am. J. Sociol. 110, 1458–1502.

Fischer, T.F., De Graaf, P.M., Kalmijn, M., 2005. Friendly and antagonistic contact between former spouses after divorce patterns and determinants. J. Fam. Issues 26, 1131–1163.

Fitzgerald, K.A., 2010. Interparental Conflict and Emotional in Security: Coparenting and Parent-child Relationships as Mediating Family Processes. Masters Thesis. Western Washington University.

Fomby, P., Osborne, C., 2010. The influence of union instability and union quality on children’s aggressive behaviour. Soc. Sci. Res. 39, 912–924.

Gähler, M., Palmtag, E.L., 2015. Parental divorce, psychological well-being and educational attainment: changed experience, unchanged effect among swedes born 1892–1991. Soc. Indic. Res. 123, 601–623.

Gauthier, A.H., 2002. Family policies in industrialized countries: is there convergence?. Population

Gerard, J.M., Buehler, C. 2004. Cumulative environmental risk and youth problem behavior. J. Marriage Fam.66, 702-720.

Gershoff, E.T., Aber, J.L., Raver, C.C., Lennon, M.C., 2007. Income is not enough: incorporating material hardship into models of income associations with parenting and child development. Child Dev. 78, 70–95. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2007.00986.x

Glynn, A.N., Quinn, K.M., 2010. An introduction to the augmented inverse propensity weighted estimator. Polit. Anal. 18, 36–56. doi:10.1093/pan/mpp036

Goodman, R., 1997. The strengths and difficulties questionnaire: a research note. J. Child Psychol. Psychiatry. 38, 581–586.

Graham, A.M., Fisher, P.A., Pfeifer, J.H., 2013. What sleeping babies hear A functional MRI Study of interparental conflict and infants’ emotion processing. Psychol. Sci. 24, 782–789.

Halpern-Meekin, S., Turney, K., 2016. Relationship churning and parenting stress among mothers and fathers. J. Marriage Fam.78, 715-729. doi:10.1111/jomf.12297

Hansen, K. et. al., 2012. Millennium Cohort Study: a Guide to Datasets (Seventh Editions). First, Second, Third and Fourth Surveys. Centre for Longitudinal Study, Institute of Education, London.

Hansen, K. and Joshi, H., 2007. Millennium Cohort Study Second Survey: a User's Guide to Initial Findings. Centre for Longitudinal Study, Institute of Education, London.

Hanson, T.L., 1999. Does parental conflict explain why divorce is negatively associated with child welfare? Soc. Forces 77, 1283–1316.

Healy, J., Stewart, A., Copeland, A., 1993. The role of self-blame in children’s adjustment to parental separation. Ann Arbor, 1001, 48109.

Heinrichs, N., Cronrath, A.L., Degen, M., Snyder, D.K., 2010. The link between child emotional and behavioural problems and couple functioning. Fam. Sci. 1, 152–172.

Hill, V., 2005. Through the past darkly: a review of the British ability scales second edition. Child Adolesc. Ment. Health 10, 87–98.

Idstad, M., Torvik, F.A., Borren, I., Rognmo, K., Røysamb, E., Tambs, K., 2015. Mental distress predicts divorce over 16 years: the HUNT study. BMC Public Health 15, 1.

Jekielek, S.M., 1998. Parental conflict, marital disruption and children’s emotional well-being. Soc. Forces 76, 905–936.

Johnson, D.R., Wu, J., 2002. An empirical test of crisis, social selection, and role explanations of the relationship between marital disruption and psychological distress: A pooled Time-Series Analysis of Four-Wave Panel Data. J. Marriage Fam. 64, 211–224. doi:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2002.00211.x

Kalmijn, M., 2015. How childhood circumstances moderate the long-term impact of divorce on father–child relationships. J. Marriage Fam.77, 921-938.

Kalmijn, M., Monden, C.W., 2006. Are the negative effects of divorce on well-being dependent on marital quality? J. Marriage Fam. 68, 1197–1213.

Karraker, A., Latham, K., 2015. In sickness and in health? Physical illness as a risk factor for marital dissolution in later life. J. Health Soc. Behav. 56, 420–435.

Ketende, S., 2010. MCS Technical Report on Response. Centre for Longitudinal Studies, London

Kiernan, K., 2004. Unmarried cohabitation and parenthood in Britain and Europe. Law Policy. 26, 33–55. doi:110.1111/j.0265-8240.2004.00162.x

Kiernan, K., McLanahan, S., Holmes, J., Wright, M., 2011. Fragile Families in the US and UK. Centre for Research on Child Well-Being Working Paper WP 11-04-FF, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ

Kiernan, K., Mensah, F., 2010. Partnership trajectories, parent and child well-being. Child. 21st Century 2, 77–94.

Kiernan, K.E., Huerta, M.C., 2008. Economic deprivation, maternal depression, parenting and children’s cognitive and emotional development in early childhood1. Br. J. Sociol. 59, 783–806. doi:10.1111/j.1468-4446.2008.00219.x

Kiernan, K.E., Mensah, F.K., 2009. Poverty, maternal depression, family status and children’s cognitive and behavioural development in early childhood: A longitudinal study. J. Soc. Policy. 38, 569–588.

Kim, H.S., 2011. Consequences of parental divorce for child development. Am. Sociol. Rev. 76, 487–511. doi:10.1177/0003122411407748

Kim, L.S., Sandler, I.N., Tein, J.-Y., 1997. Locus of control as a stress moderator and mediator in children of divorce. J. Abnorm. Child Psychol. 25, 145–155.

Liu, R.X., Chen, Z., 2006. The effects of marital conflict and marital disruption on depressive affect: A comparison between women in and out of poverty. Soc. Sci. Q. 87, 250–271.

Lee, D., McLanahan, S., 2015. Family structure transitions and child development instability, selection, and population heterogeneity. Am. Sociol. Rev. 80, 738–63.

Levinger, G., 1976. A social psychological perspective on marital dissolution. J.Soc. Issues 32, 21–47.

Maes, S.D., De Mol, J., Buysse, A., 2012. Children’s experiences and meaning construction on parental divorce: A focus group study. Childhood. 19, 266–279.

Mayer, S.E., 2002. The influence of parental income on children’s outcomes. Ministry of Social Development, New Zealand.

McLanahan, S., Sandefur, G., 1994. Growing Up with a Single Parent. What Hurts, What Helps. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.

McLanahan, S., Tach, L., Schneider, D., 2013. The causal effects of father absence. Annu. Rev. Sociol. 39, 399–427.

McLaren E., 2014. Live Births in England and Wales by Characteristics of Mother: The age and living arrangements of mothers based on birth registration data. Office for National Statistics. Available from: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/bulletins/livebirthsinenglandandwalesbycharacteristicsofmother1/2014-10-16.

Morrison, D.R., Coiro, M.J., 1999. Parental conflict and marital disruption: Do children benefit when high-conflict marriages are dissolved? J. Marriage Fam. 61, 626-637.

Muluk, N.B., Bayoğlu, B., Anlar, B., 2014. Language development and affecting factors in 3-to 6-year-old children. Eur. Arch. Otorhinolaryngol. 271, 871–878.

Nepomnyaschy, L., Teitler, J., 2013. Cyclical cohabitation among unmarried parents in fragile families. J. Marriage Fam. 75, 1248–1265. doi:10.1111/jomf.12064 OECD (2017), Poverty rate (indicator). doi: 10.1787/0fe1315d-en (Accessed on 01 September 2017)

Oláh, L.S., Gähler, M., 2014. Gender equality perceptions, division of paid and unpaid work, and partnership dissolution in Sweden. Soc. Forces. 93, 571–594.

Allin P., Hand D. J., 2017. New statistics for old?—measuring the wellbeing of the UK. J Roy Stat Soc A Sta. 180, 3-43.

Perelli-Harris, B., 2014. How similar are cohabiting and married parents? Second conception risks by union type in the United States and across Europe. Eur. J. Popul. 30, 437–464.

Petterson, S.M., Albers, A.B., 2001. Effects of poverty and maternal depression on early child development. Child Dev. 72, 1794–1813.

Plewis, I., Calderwood, L., Hawkes, D., Hughes, G., and Joshi, H., 2007. Millennium Cohort Study: Technical Report on Sampling. Centre for Longitudinal Study, Institute of Education, London.

Plewis, I., 2007. Non-response in a birth cohort study: the case of the Millennium Cohort Study. Int. J. Soc. Res. Methodol. 10, 325–334.

Potter, D., 2010. Psychosocial Well-Being and the Relationship Between Divorce and Children’s Academic Achievement. J. Marriage Fam. 72, 933–946. doi:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2010.00740.x

Raghunathan, T.E., Lepkowski, J.M., Van Hoewyk, J., Solenberger, P., 2001. A multivariate technique for multiply imputing missing values using a sequence of regression models. Survey methodology. 27, 85-96.

Rosenbaum, P.R., 1987. Model-based direct adjustment. J. Am. Stat. Assoc. 82, 387–394.

Rosenbaum P.R., 1983. The central role of the propensity score in observational studies for causal effects. Biometrika, 70, 41-55.

Robins, J.M., Rotnitzky, A., Zhao, L.P., 1994. Estimation of regression coefficients when some regressors are not always observed. J. Am. Stat. Assoc. 89, 846–866.

Robins, J.M., Hernan M.A., Brumback B., 2000. Marginal structural models and causal inference in epidemiology. Epidemiology. 11, 550-560.

Romano, E., Babchishin, L., Pagani, L.S., Kohen, D., 2010. School readiness and later achievement: Replication and extension using a nationwide Canadian survey. Dev. Psychol. 46, 995–1007. doi:10.1037/a0018880

Roy, K.M., Buckmiller, N., McDowell, A., 2008. Together but not “together”: trajectories of relationship suspension for low-income unmarried parents. Fam. Relat. 57, 198–210. doi:10.1111/j.1741-3729.2008.00494.x

Rubin, D.B., 1996. Multiple imputation after 18+ years. J. Am. Stat. Assoc. 91, 473-489.

Rubin, D.B., 2002. Introduction to multiple imputation. Stat. Anal. Missing Data 2nd Ed N. Y. NY John Wiley Sons 85–93.

Rust, J., Bennun, I., Crowe, M., Golombok, S., 1990. The GRIMS. A psychometric instrument for the assessment of marital discord. J. Fam. Ther. 12, 45–57.

Sabates, R., Dex, S., 2015. The impact of multiple risk factors on young children’s cognitive and behavioural development. Child. Soc. 29, 95–108.

Sandler, I.N., Kim-Bae, L.S., MacKinnon, D., 2000. Coping and negative appraisal as mediators between control beliefs and psychological symptoms in children of divorce. J. Clin. Child Psychol. 29, 336–347.

Sigle-Rushton, W., McLanahan, S., 2004. Father Absence and Child Well-being: A Critical Review. Russell Sage Foundation, New York.

Strohschein, L., 2005. Parental divorce and child mental health trajectories. J. Marriage Fam. 67, 1286–1300.

Timmer, S.G., Veroff, J., 2000. Family ties and the discontinuity of divorce in black and white newlywed couples. J. Marriage Fam. 62, 349–361. doi:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2000.00349.x

Vennum, A., Lindstrom, R., Monk, J.K., Adams, R., 2014. “It’s complicated” The continuity and correlates of cycling in cohabiting and marital relationships. J. Soc. Pers. Relatsh. 31, 410–430.

Waite, L.J., Luo, Y., Lewin, A.C., 2009. Marital happiness and marital stability: Consequences for psychological well-being. Soc. Sci. Res. 38, 201–212.

Weirich, S., Haag, N., Hecht, M., Böhme, K., Siegle, T., Lüdtke, O., 2014. Nested multiple imputation in large-scale assessments. Large-scale assess. Educ. 2, 1–18.

Wheaton, B., 1990. Life transitions, role histories, and mental health. Am. Sociol. Rev. 55, 209–223.

White, I.R., Royston, P., Wood, A.M., 2011. Multiple imputation using chained equations: issues and guidance for practice. Stad Med. 30, 377-399.

Williams, K., 2003. Has the future of marriage arrived? A contemporary examination of gender, marriage, and psychological well-being. J. Health Soc. Behav. 44, 470.

Wilson, S.E., Waddoups, S.L., 2002. Good marriages gone bad: Health mismatches as a cause of later-life marital dissolution. Popul. Res. Policy Rev. 21, 505–533.

Ye, M., DeMaris, A., Longmore, M. A., 2017. Role of marital quality in explaining depressive symptoms after marital termination among older adults. Marriage Fam Rev. 1-16.

Yu, T., Pettit, G.S., Lansford, J.E., Dodge, K.A., Bates, J.E., 2010. The interactive effects of marital conflict and divorce on parent – adult children’s relationships. J. Marriage Fam. 72, 282–292. doi:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2010.00699.x