A new study has revealed that children who experience parental divorce face significant long-term consequences, including lower income, increased mortality risk, and a higher likelihood of teenage pregnancy.
The research, conducted by economists Andrew C. Johnston, Maggie R. Jones, and Nolan G. Pope, tracked children born in the US between 1988 and 1993, and examined their lives across key indicators like income levels, college enrollment, incarceration rates, and mortality.
The authors employed a sibling comparison method, allowing them to measure how divorce impacts children differently within the same family depending on their age at the time of separation.
The findings, based on an analysis of more than five million tax records, suggest that divorce directly contributes to adverse outcomes for children, beyond existing family issues or economic disadvantage.
The study found that divorce is associated with a dramatic decline in household income. Before a breakup, families typically earned $90,000 to $100,000 annually. Following a divorce, that figure drops to around $42,000 - a loss that persists for at least a decade, with family earnings maintaining a deficit of around 30% from what they were before the divorce.
This financial strain translated into longer working hours for both parents - fathers increased their working hours by 16%, and mothers by 8% - meaning less contact time with their children.
Divorce often leads to residential instability, researchers found. Around 35% of children in divorced families relocated in the first year of the divorce, and over time, the physical distance between non-custodial parents, usually fathers, and their children increased dramatically. By 10 years post-divorce, the average distance between parents exceeded 200 miles.
In tandem, children tended to move into lower-income neighbourhoods. On average, neighbourhood household incomes dropped by 7% after a divorce, indicating a measurable decline in living standards.
Using sibling comparisons, the study found that the younger the child at the time of divorce, the more pronounced the negative effects compared to their older siblings.
Those who went through divorce in early childhood earned 9% to 13% less by their mid-to-late twenties compared to siblings who were older when their parents separated.
The researchers equated this drop in income to “losing a year of education” or growing up in a significantly worse neighbourhood.
Other indicators of child wellbeing also showed negative trends. The teen birth rate among girls rose sharply post-divorce, from around 7 to 13 births per 1,000 annually, while child mortality rates rose from 10 to 15 deaths per 100,000 children, a 35% to 55% rise.
These patterns held even when controlling for pre-existing family conditions, suggesting a direct causal effect from the divorce itself.
The study identifies three primary pathways through which divorce harms children: reduced household income, living in neighbourhoods with lower living standards, and greater distance between children and non-resident parents. Together, these factors accounted for 25% to 60% of the adverse outcomes observed.
Grant Bailey, research associate at the Institute for Family Studies, argues that they are not merely side effects but integral to understanding the broader impact of divorce.
The researchers stressed that their results are not the product of temporary family crises or one-off events like job loss. Instead, they argue, divorce typically follows deep-rooted tensions within the marriage, and the data show no evidence of economic or health shocks prior to the split.
According to Bailey, these findings challenge a popular narrative in contemporary American media that focuses on the empowerment or liberation of divorcing individuals without addressing the effects on children.
While divorce may indeed benefit individual parents in certain situations, this study underscores the often-overlooked costs for the next generation.
Although further research is needed to fully explore the many dimensions of divorce’s impact, this study makes one point clear: parental separation is not a neutral event in a child’s life but rather sets off a cascade of changes - economic, geographic, and emotional - that can shape their future for years to come.
“This new study provides further evidence that lasting marriages matter, especially for child well-being,” Bailey concluded.
