The Longitudinal Effects of Divorce and Maternal Employment on the Home Environments of Preschool Children

The purpose of this study was to examine the home environments of children whose mothers were married1 working, married/nonworking, or divorced/working across an eighteen-month period. The sample consisted of 42 families, with children from 4 1/2 to 7 years of age. The HOME (Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment) Inventory was administered in the home to assess the amount of cognitive and social stimulation provided the children. The home environments of children from divorced/working homes were found to be less cognitive and socially stimulating than those of married homes. These differences did not appear to be reflective of differences in the child-rearing attitudes of mothers from divorced and married families. The home environments of the married families with and without working mothers were found to very similar.     

Lone Motherhood and its Educational Outcomes for Children in Vietnam

Micro-data from the 2009 Vietnam census indicate that lone mothers represent 11.0% of all women aged 15 to 49 living with at least one of their children (≤17 years old). Results from logistic regression models show that school enrollment and attainment levels are lower for children of lone mothers than for children living with two parents. This negative effect is observed for children of never married, divorced or separated, and widowed lone mothers as well as for children of women currently married to a migrant not residing in the household provided they are not head of household. This disadvantage may be explained by reduced availability of human, material, and financial resources; restricted agency of the mother; and long-term socioeconomic and demographic processes shaping family relations and migration.     

Sibling Interactions in Married and Divorced Families:

One hundred twenty-eight sibling dyads, 64 from married families, and 64 from divorced, were observed on two separate occasions while playing a structured and an unstructured game. Half of the sibling dyads within each family form were from higher socioeconomic status (SES) families and half from lower SES families. The frequency of caretaking (e.g., directing, teaching, helping), negative, and positive behaviors were coded. Results revealed that sibling interactions in divorced families are both more negative and less positive than in married families. Siblings in divorced families also engage in more caretaking behavior. Similar differences were detected between lower and higher SES families, yet differences in sibling interactions in married and divorced families were not exacerbated by socioeconomic status. Younger siblings were more likely to be the recipient of caregiving behavior and to be more positive in their interactions. However, both older and younger siblings' behavior was influenced by the game context.     

Women’s Decision to Divorce in Light of Failure in Marital Status and Dignity

In Iranian society, divorce, as an instability index of family, has been on the increase over the last decade. In particular, this separation is fraught with considerable difficulties for wives with children. The overall aim of this study is to investigate the nature of the process of deciding to separate by the divorced women despite having children. Resting on the grounded theory method, this study was conducted among 20 divorced women with children in the city of Tehran. The findings show that having a child is not a determining factor for the women to remain married; rather, what determines the separation of women with children is experiencing a status loss within their marital life, an experience that originates from losing her status after a woman has gotten married. Of course, women’s agency within the domain of family disintegration happens when they have the ability to overcome social fears and also have economic support. Through this course of events, although children are of enormous importance for the mothers, they are temporarily neglected while the mothers, for a short period, think primarily of saving themselves. Making their final decision to get separated leads to reactivating the role of their children; then, the mothers proceed to make the optimal decision.     

Marriage and the Motherhood Wage Penalty Among African Americans,Hispanics, and Whites

This study draws on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N = 5,929) to analyze the moderating effects of race and marriage on the motherhood wage penalty. Fixed‐effects models reveal that for Hispanic women, motherhood is not associated with a wage penalty. For African Americans, only married mothers with more than 2 children pay a wage penalty. For Whites, all married mothers pay a wage penalty, as do all never‐married mothers and divorced mothers with 1 or 2 children. These findings imply that racial differences in the motherhood wage penalty persist even for women with similar marital statuses, and they suggest that patterns of racial stratification shape women’s family experiences and labor market outcomes.     

Coming to Terms With Parental Divorce: Associations With Marital Outcomes and the Role of Gender and Religiosity

In this article we examine the current marriage relationship outcomes for children of divorce compared to children from intact families. The sample is 997 matched married couples. Those from families with married parents were more likely to come to terms with issues in their family of origin, and had higher religiosity, less negative communication, and more positive relationship satisfaction than those with divorced parents. Religiosity was effective in helping those with married parents come to terms with family of origin. The variable coming to terms with family of origin predicted positive marital outcomes to some extent for all couples, although for couples where both partners' parents had divorced coming to terms predicted fewer positive outcomes. Coming to terms for females was associated more profoundly with decreases in negative communication for both males and the females, and also predicted satisfaction and stability in more cases than did coming to terms for males.     

Stress,Social Resources,and Depression among Never‐Married and Divorced Rural Mothers*

Abstract While the impact of single parenting on women and children has long been a concern, very little research has focused on single parents living in rural areas. Based on a probability sample of 508 single mothers aged 18–39 living in rural Northern New England, the present study: (1) examines the impact of several domains of stress on mothers' depression, (2) considers potential buffering effects of social resources, and (3) identifies variations in conditions and outcomes for divorced and never‐married mothers. Findings highlight the importance of multiple forms of stress exposure, showing independent significant effects of lifetime adversity, recent life events, and chronic stressors on current depressive symptoms. Although emotional support reduces depression, neither support nor living arrangements moderate the impact of recent and current stressors. Divorced women experience more stress exposure, greater vulnerability to stress, and do not benefit from family support to the same extent as never‐married mothers. Possible differences in the meanings that divorced and never‐married mothers attach to current life circumstances are discussed.     

Whose child is it anyway? The negotiation of paternal entitlements within marriage

Based on qualitative research, this paper suggests that among some married/co‐habiting couples, where mothers are professionally employed and there are pre‐school children, fathers seek to enhance their paternal role. This contrasts with previous research, which indicates that married/co‐habiting men leave to mothers the responsibility for nurturing both maternal and paternal relationships with children. Using the notions of situational and debilitative power, it is shown how married/co‐habiting fathers developed strategies for augmenting paternal rights. While fathers' involvement with children was perceived as beneficial by some mothers, others regarded it as a threat to maternal status. The paper suggests that power relations between married/co‐habiting parents in the sample are similar to power struggles between couples who are separated or divorced. The possibility is raised that paternal strategies to diminish the maternal sphere of influence among both married/co‐habiting and divorced fathers may be symptomatic of wider male fears about the erosion of male hegemony. It is observed that the schemes employed by fathers in the sample to enhance the paternal role are similar to the approach advocated in policy statements of fathers' rights activists.     

The short-term and decade-long effects of divorce on women's midlife health

We hypothesize that divorce immediately increases psychological distress and has long-term negative consequences for the physical health of divorced people. In addition, we hypothesize that divorce indirectly causes long-term increases in distress through stressful midlife events. The hypotheses are tested using data from 416 rural Iowa women who were interviewed repeatedly in the early 1990s when they were mothers of adolescent children; the women were interviewed again in 2001. The data support the hypotheses. In the years immediately after their divorce (1991-1994), divorced women reported significantly higher levels ofpsychological distress than married women but no differences in physical illness. A decade later (in 2001), the divorced women reported significantly higher levels of illness, even after controlling for age, remarriage, education, income, and prior health. Compared to their married counterparts, divorced women reported higher levels of stressful life events between 1994 and 2000, which led to higher levels of depressive symptoms in 2001.     

Effect on Preschoolers' Literacy when Never‐Married Mothers Get Married

Healthy Marriage programs in the United States aim to promote marriage primarily among low‐income individuals. There is little research assessing whether children fare better when their never‐married mothers get married. The present study uses the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey–Birth Cohort to test the hypothesis that children have higher literacy scores when their mothers who had never married when the children were 9 months old had married when the children were 48 months old (N = 2,800). A small positive effect was found, but only when marriage was compared with cohabitation. The association between marriage and literacy is partially explained by mothers' increased household income. The children of mothers who were single noncohabitants or married and then divorced or separated were also doing better with respect to literacy than children of cohabiting mothers. Future research is needed to better understand how cohabitation is associated with negative effects on children's literacy.     

Enrollment,Educational Expenditures and Work Among One-Parent Children in India

In this study, I examined the effect of single parenthood due to death, separation, divorce, or migration of spouse on educational inputs among school-age children in India. I used the nationally representative India Human Development Survey to study the implications of different types of parenthood on educational expenditure among children ages 6 to 11 and 12 to 18 years and work participation among the older age group. The study finds that the separated or divorced mothers on average spend less on education and older children of widows are more likely to work because of resource constraints associated with single parenthood. The results highlight the need for public policies that would support widows as well as separated or divorced mothers.     

Venting to Unify the Front: Parents’ Negative Relational Disclosures about Their Children as Mediators of Coparental Communication and Relational Quality

In families with children, presenting a unified front is important for healthy couple and family functioning, yet the behavioral mechanisms that explain how coparental communication strengthens the interparental relationship remain unclear. In this study, we examined how parents’ negative relational disclosures about their children to each other serve as mediators of coparental communication and relational quality in divorced (n = 65 dyads) and married couples (n = 173 dyads). Coparents’ reports of closeness and satisfaction in both couple types were predicted primarily by their reports of supportive and antagonistic coparental communication. The results also revealed significant indirect effects of supportive coparental communication on closeness through negative relational disclosures about young adult children for married mothers and divorced fathers. Antagonistic coparental communication positively predicted married coparents’ disclosures about their children, but not divorced coparents’ disclosures. The results extend theoretical models of coparenting and provide implications for coparenting education programs.     

Marital Status and Other Correlates of Personal Bankruptcy, 1986–2004

ABSTRACT

Relying on National Longitudinal Survey (NLS) data, this retrospective cohort study found that 11.6% (n = 882) of the eligible study sample (N = 7,609) declared personal or nonbusiness, nonentrepreneurial between 1986 and 2004. These debtors had average annual incomes that were about 2.5 times official poverty thresholds. Those who were divorced in 2004 were most likely to have declared bankruptcy (16.4%), followed by separated (13.9%), married with spouses present (11.2%), and never–married (7.0%) persons. Specific correlates of bankruptcy varied by year. Marital status was associated with likelihood of declaring bankruptcy in only 6 of 14 survey years: Never-married persons at the time of declared bankruptcy were less likely than married persons to declare, whereas formerly married persons, whether divorced or separated, were more likely than married persons to do so. Formerly married persons who declared bankruptcy bounced back economically to a lesser degree than did married persons, even though their predeclared bankruptcy levels of economic well-being were roughly equivalent. Interaction effects showed that formerly married women were more likely to declare bankruptcy than their male counterparts.     

Do the Kids Think They're Okay? Adolescents' Views on the Impact of Marriage and Divorce

A sample (N?=?365) of middle school and high school students from both divorced and intact families were surveyed with regard to their opinions about the impact of their parents' relationships (divorced or married) on a variety of areas of their lives. Adolescents from separated or divorced (S/D) families tended to rate their parents' relationships and impact on them more negatively than adolescents from living together or married (L/M) families. However, both groups consistently rated their parents in the same direction on a variety of topics. Gender was not a factor in the responses of either group. However, age (middle school vs. high school) was related to significant differences in adolescents' views about parents.     

Marital status and psychiatric disorders among blacks and whites.

This paper examines the association between marital status and psychiatric disorder for Blacks and explores the extent to which these patterns differ from those for Whites. Widowed and separated/divorced Black males and females have higher rates of disorder than the married; never-married Blacks do not have an elevated risk of psychiatric illness. The association between marital status and disorder for White males is similar and stronger than that observed for Blacks. For White women, the separated/divorced have a higher risk of disorder than the married, and unmarried White females have higher rates of the substance abuse disorders, but lower rates of the anxiety disorder than the married. Across all marital status groups, Black males and White males have higher rates of disorder (except for depression), than females. A complex pattern emerges when gender differences in the relative rates of disorder for unmarried Blacks compared to married Blacks are considered. Separated/divorced Black men, widowed Black women, and never-married Black men are worse off than their respective peers. Except for the separated/divorced, opposite patterns are evident for Whites. Directions for further research are outlined.     

The Effects of Divorce on Children: Married and Divorced Parents' Perspectives

Three hypotheses, derived from the social psychology literature, regarding the impact of marital status history on parents' attitudes toward the impact of divorce on children were examined. Married parents (n = 118) were expected to report more negative effects of divorce on children than divorced parents (n = 114); mothers and fathers whose own parents remained married were expected to rate the impact of divorce more negatively than mothers and fathers whose parents had divorced; and, divorced parents who initiated their own divorce were expected to report fewer negative effects of divorce on children than parents who did not initiate divorce. All three hypotheses were supported, extending the self- and vested-interest research to the divorce literature.     

An exploratory study of recreational drug use and nutrition-related behaviors and attitudes among adolescents.

This study examined drug use and eating behaviors among adolescents. The data were collected by phone interviews from 401 northern Nevadan students in grades seven to twelve. Students were divided for comparison into three groups according to their involvement with drugs: Abstainers, conventional users, and high-risk users. Analyses indicated that high-risk users less frequently ate lunch, meals at home, and with their families, and ate more often at convenience stores, fast food restaurants, and with friends. In addition, female high-risk users had significantly more negative perceptions regarding their food choices than the other female groups, and were more concerned with dieting than their high-risk using male peers. Male and female high-risk users believed that their drug use affected their eating habits. Implications for prevention programming and future research are discussed.     

Childhood Obesity Differences in Single-Father and Single-Mother Families

ABSTRACT

Prior research consistently finds that children living in two-parent families are less likely to be obese than children in single-parent families. Most of the research that explores the relationship between family structure and childhood obesity is limited in its conceptualization of family structure, however, either ignoring single-father families or bunching them in the same category as single-mother families. Research on gender and families suggests that single fathers are different from single mothers in ways that may influence a child’s risk of obesity. We use data from the kindergarten wave of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998–1999 to explore differences in obesity rates for young children in single-father and single-mother families. Compared to single mothers, single fathers earn more and provide a slightly healthier home environment (less TV watching and more sharing of meals) but are more likely to work outside the home full-time. Children in single-father families are also more likely to be white and have fewer siblings. These differences counteract one another, resulting in similar levels of obesity in these two types of single-parent families.     

Parental Authority in Divorced Families

This work examines the possible differences between divorced mothers and mothers of intact families in their inclinations to exert parental authority, and the possible relationship between the degree of parental authority and children's personal and social adjustment. For the purposes of the study, we developed the Haifa Parental Authority Questionnaire, which is a situation-depicted test based on a conceptual analysis of the construct of authority. The participants were 88 mother–child dyads, 56 from single (divorced) families and 32 from two-parent families. The results show that married mothers are more disposed than are divorced mothers to use their authority. Although adding family status and parental authority scores to the regression analysis yielded insignificant models for the two children's adjustment variables, the interaction between the variables was found to be significant. In the divorced family the more authoritarian the mother is, the worse is the child's personal adjustment, whereas in the intact family the more authoritarian the mother is, the better is the child's social adjustment. The results are discussed in the wider context of the mother–child relationship, the breakdown of the family's hierarchical structure following divorce, and the relationship of these factors with the exertion of parental authority.     

Effects of Divorce on Children's Perceptions of Parent Behavior and Locus of Control

This study examined the effects of divorce on later latency children from a nonclinical population. Perceptions of parent behavior and locus of control were assessed for 68 middle class children aged 9 to 12 years. Results showed a general absence of differences between children from divorced and intact families in their perceptions of parent behavior and locus of control. There were no significant differences between children from divorced and intact families on the three factors of the Children's Reports of Parent Behavior Inventory (CRPBI) (Acceptance-Rejection, Psychological Control-Psychological Autonomy, and Firm Control-Lax Control), 17 of 18 scales of the CRPBI, and the Nowicki-Strickland Locus of Control scale. However, the Possessiveness scale of the CRPBI indicated that children of divorce perceived both their mothers and fathers as significantly more possessive than did children from intact families. The results showed that parental divorce did not impact strongly on children's perceptions of parents and locus of control and suggest minimal adverse effects of divorce, at least for children from the volunteer nonclinical population studied.