Parental separation and the accumulation of stress during early life: a pubertal development marker approach

Parental separation during early life is associated with adverse health, social, and educational outcomes over the life course. These disadvantages are often attributed to stress accumulation, which is, however, mostly not specifically examined. To do so, we exploit information on children’s pubertal development as physiological markers of stress accumulation and investigate how it is associated with parental separation during childhood in girls and boys in Germany. We furthermore focus on whether this association varies by the age at parental separation, parental education, or post-separation family structure. Using data from the longitudinal German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents (KiGGS), pubertal development is measured as the age at menarche in girls (3,254) and at first seminal ejaculation in boys (2,290) and gender-stratified assessed in regression models with and without accounting for observable selection into family instability. Delivering first-time evidence for the case of Germany, we find that experiencing parental separation in early life is associated with earlier pubertal development for both girls and boys compared to their peers whose parents did not separate. These associations remain similarly strong but non-significant after applying entropy balancing, indicating a decisive role of selection for stress accumulation. Among boys, the association is driven primarily by the experience of parental separation in early childhood (0-4 years). We found no substantial heterogeneity by parental education or post-separation family structure. Overall, our findings suggest that early-life family instability increases physiological stress accumulation, particularly during early childhood for boys, and the relevance of pre-existing family differences.