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The Kids Are OK Divorce and Children's Behavior Problems

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  • Jui-Chung Allen Li

Abstract

Social scientists and commentators disagree on how much of the association between parental divorce and child well-being is causal. This paper reexamines the claim that parental divorce is detrimental to children’s emotional well-being, measured in terms of behavior problems. The author analyzed panel data from the 1986-2002 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979, and found that parental divorce is associated with a higher level of behavior problems in children. However, after controlling for unobserved factors that are either constant over time or change at a constant rate over time, the effect of parents’ divorce substantially declines and its influence on their children’s emotional well-being is not statistically significant.

Suggested Citation

  • Jui-Chung Allen Li, 2007. "The Kids Are OK Divorce and Children's Behavior Problems," Working Papers WR-489, RAND Corporation.
    • Handle: RePEc:ran:wpaper:wr-489
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    File URL: https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/working_papers/2007/RAND_WR489.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Andrew Cherlin, 1999. "Going to extremes: Family structure, children’s well-being, and social science," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 36(4), pages 421-428, November.
    2. Linda Waite, 1995. "Does marriage matter?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 32(4), pages 483-507, November.
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    Cited by:

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    3. Robert Crosnoe & Kate Prickett & Chelsea Smith & Shannon Cavanagh, 2014. "Changes in Young Children’s Family Structures and Child Care Arrangements," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(2), pages 459-483, April.
    4. Wei Ding & Ke Qiu, 2018. "A quadratic time exact algorithm for continuous connected 2-facility location problem in trees," Journal of Combinatorial Optimization, Springer, vol. 36(4), pages 1262-1298, November.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    divorce; children;

    JEL classification:

    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure

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