LISA STROHSCHEIN University of Alberta

Parental Divorce and Child Mental

Health Trajectories

A process-oriented approach to parental antisocial behavior decreases when marriages

divorce locates the experience within the social in highly dysfunctional families are dissolved.
and developmental context of children’s lives,
providing greater insight into how parental
Parental divorce is an increasingly common
divorce produces vulnerability in some children
and resiliency in others. The current study in- experience in childhood, with nearly one in two
divorces in Canada involving dependent chil-
volves prospectively tracking a nationally rep-
dren (Ambert, 2002). These trends have lent
resentative sample of Canadian children of
ages 4–7 and living with two biological parents urgency to the ongoing debate as to whether
parental divorce is damaging to child mental
at initial interview in 1994 (N ¼ 2,819), and
health. Moving beyond simply asking whether
comparing the mental health trajectories of
divorce affects children, researchers have called
children whose parents remain married with
for a process-oriented approach, which involves
those whose parents divorce by 1998. Results
examining features in the child’s life both prior
from growth curve models confirm that, even
to and after divorce to gain a more textured
before marital breakup, children whose parents
understanding of the circumstances by which
later divorce exhibit higher levels of anxiety/
parental divorce adversely affects some children
depression and antisocial behavior than chil-
more than others (Amato, 2000; Hetherington
dren whose parents remain married. There is
a further increase in child anxiety/depression & Stanley-Hagan, 1999; Kelly & Emery, 2003).
One of the key weaknesses of early studies
but not antisocial behavior associated with the
was the use of cross-sectional data to compare
event of parental divorce itself. Controlling for
children in intact two–biological parent families
predivorce parental socioeconomic and psycho-
with children whose parents are divorced. The
social resources fully accounts for poorer child
comparison presented an overly pessimistic view
mental health at initial interview among chil-
by failing to take into account the quality of
dren whose parents later divorce, but does not
family life prior to parental divorce. In particular,
explain the divorce-specific increase in anxiety/
there was concern that the effects of parental
depression. Finally, a significant interaction
divorce on child mental health were spurious
between parental divorce and predivorce
levels of family dysfunction suggests that child to the extent that both were influenced by pre-
divorce family characteristics. Efforts to resolve
this issue, by using two-wave panel studies
that prospectively followed children in two–
Department of Sociology, University of Alberta, 5-21 biological parent households, led to several
Tory Building, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2H4 (lisa. studies showing there was a larger increase in
strohschein@ualberta.ca). mental health problems for children whose par-
Key Words: child outcomes, growth curve models, mental ents subsequently divorced than for children
health, parental divorce. whose parents remained married, even when
1286 Journal of Marriage and Family 67 (December 2005): 1286–1300
Parental Divorce and Child Mental Health
adjusted for predivorce family characteristics
(Hanson, 1999; Jekielek, 1998; Morrison &
Coiro, 1999; but see Cherlin et al., 1991). Stud-
ies reporting significant differences, however,
narrowly defined predivorce family characteris-
tics as marital conflict, and greater attention was
drawn to the issue of whether the impact of
parental divorce was contingent on the level of
marital conflict prior to divorce. Despite evi-
dence that divorce may operate as stress relief
for highly conflicted families, the hypothesis
has been tested just once on a nationally repre-
sentative sample of children (Hanson) and never
on a dataset with multiple waves. In the current
study, I use the method of growth curve analy-
sis, which allows me to distinguish effects
associated with being a child of divorce from
those associated with going through parental
divorce, on the repeated observations of a
nationally representative sample of Canadian
children interviewed three times between 1994
and 1998. I evaluate the extent to which effects
of parental divorce are spurious when adjusting
for a comprehensive set of predivorce measures
of family life and then test the stress relief
hypothesis.
Controlling for Predivorce Parental Resources
Even before divorce, the lives of children of
divorced parents may differ substantially from
children in intact families, and it is plausible that
these differences, rather than parental divorce,
are the source of child mental health problems.
In part, these differences represent signs of dis-
engagement that begin well in advance of the
divorce event. As parents proceed along the path
to divorce, the ability and motivation of one or
both parents to invest time, effort, and resources
into the lives of their children may become
increasingly compromised (Sun & Li, 2001).
Failure to make these investments over time not
only brings families one step closer to divorce
but also exacts a mental health cost on children.
To ascertain more precisely the effect that the
event of parental divorce has on child well-being
and mental health, researchers need to include all
preexisting parental resources that influence the
likelihood of marital separation and are predic-
tive of child mental health problems. I distin-
guish between parental socioeconomic resources,
which reflect parents’ ability to access financial
and human capital to enhance child outcomes,
and psychosocial resources, which comprise
1287
parents’ ability to provide a harmonious and emo-
tionally nurturing environment for their children.
Socioeconomic resources. Controlling for predi-
vorce parental socioeconomic resources such
as household income, parental education, and
homeownership is necessary because each is
independently associated with divorce and child
mental health problems. Divorce rates are higher
among those with lower levels of household
income (Hoffman & Duncan, 1995), lower
educational attainment (Hanson, McLanahan, &
Thomson, 1998; Orbuch, Veroff, Hassan, &
Horrocks, 2002), and for those living in rented
accommodations (Otto, 1998). Socioeconomic
disadvantage may directly exacerbate family
conflict and instability (Corcoran & Chaudry,
1997); indirectly, higher educational attainment
may reflect better communication and relation-
ship skills and the purchase of a home may be
a marker for commitment to marriage.
The association between socioeconomic sta-
tus and child mental health is also well docu-
mented, with fewer emotional and behavioral
problems among children with correspondingly
higher levels of household income and parental
education (Bradley & Corwyn, 2002; Carlson
& Corcoran, 2001; Duncan, Brooks-Gunn, &
Klebanov, 1994; Morris & Gennetian, 2003)
and in households that are owned rather than
rented (Boyle, 2002). Household income
directly represents parents’ financial resources,
whereas educational attainment and home-
ownership tap into different ways children can
be provided with a safe, stable, and stimulating
environment (Bradley & Corwyn; Hauser,
1994).
Psychosocial resources. Psychosocial resources
such as marital satisfaction, parental depression,
and family dysfunction reflect parents’ interper-
sonal skills and psychological capabilities in
maintaining family well-being, and each are
linked to parental divorce and child mental
health. Longitudinal studies confirm that parents
are more likely to be divorced at follow-up if
one of the parents is initially dissatisfied with
their marriage (Devine & Forehand, 1996) or is
depressed (Wade & Cairney, 2000). By sapping
the parent’s ability to emotionally attend and
respond to their children’s needs, marital dis-
satisfaction and parental depression also affect
child mental health. Children of a depressed
male or female parent have greater emotional
1288
and behavioral problems than children who do
not have a depressed parent (Goodman &
Gotlib, 1999; Sarigiani, Heath, & Camarena,
2003), and low marital satisfaction among
parents is significantly associated with higher
levels of child distress (Fishman & Meyers, 2000).
Family dysfunction can be defined as the
absence of mutually supportive, trusting, and
respectful family relationships. Treating family
dysfunction as a parental investment is justified
because parents bear responsibility for pro-
viding a positive family environment for their
children, a task that requires parenting and inter-
personal skills. This does not deny that parents
and children mutually influence each other.
Indeed, troubled or difficult-to-manage children
can exacerbate hostilities between parents and
may hasten the process of marital dissolution.
Even so, in the most challenging family situa-
tion, effective parents prevent friction between
family members from spilling over into other
areas of family life. Research indicates that chil-
dren of highly dysfunctional families are at risk
for mental health problems (Lipman, Offord, &
Boyle, 1994) and that family conflict is signifi-
cantly higher among families that later divorce
than families that remain intact (Block, Block,
& Gjerde, 1988).
The Stress Relief Hypothesis
As longitudinal studies that controlled for child
well-being and family life prior to divorce
became the standard for investigating the effects
of parental divorce on child mental health, re-
searchers began to consider the ways in which
predivorce family characteristics might also dif-
ferentially affect psychological adjustment to
parental divorce. Formally stated by Wheaton
(1990), the stress relief hypothesis contends that
a stressful life event, such as parental divorce,
may actually have beneficial effects on children
when divorce represents escape from a noxious
environment. In other words, if children live in
families in which parents are openly hostile or
abusive, parental divorce may be experienced
as stress relief, leading to a postdivorce im-
provement in child mental health.
Amato, Loomis, and Booth (1995) were the
first to apply the stress relief hypothesis on
a sample of young adults who had experienced
divorce in childhood. Neither parental conflict
nor parental divorce was a significant predictor
of well-being, but a model testing the interac-
Journal of Marriage and Family
tion was significant, suggesting that in high-
conflict families, well-being was higher among
young adults whose parents divorced compared
to young adults whose parents remained mar-
ried. Although Amato et al. were unable to
include measures of well-being prior to divorce,
two subsequent studies of children from the
American National Longitudinal Survey of
Youth confirmed the stress relief hypothesis.
These studies compared change in anxiety and
depression/withdrawal (Jekielek, 1998) and
behavioral problems (Morrison & Coiro, 1999)
among children whose parents did and did not
divorce. The chief limitation of these studies,
relying on a nonrepresentative sample of young
mothers, was overcome by Hanson (1999) whose
study, based on the reports of a nationally repre-
sentative sample of mothers and fathers inter-
viewed in 1987 and 1993, also lent support to
the stress relief hypothesis. To date, no study
has investigated the stress hypothesis using
more than two waves of data, even though re-
searchers have come to recognize that two-wave
panel studies are typically insufficient for
understanding change.
Beyond Two-Wave Panel Studies
One of the major shortcomings of two-wave
panel studies is that they fail to conceptualize
child mental health as a developmental process.
Assessing incremental change between two time
points assumes that all children are changing in
the same way, thus obscuring individual varia-
tion in change in mental health over time and
potentially providing inaccurate estimates of the
effect of parental divorce on child mental health
(Lambert, Doucette, & Bickman, 2001; Singer &
Willett, 2003). When there are more than two
waves of data, researchers can apply a statistical
method known as growth curve modeling.
Growth curve models treat child mental health
as a developmental trajectory that takes into
account individual variation, yet yields estimates
for an average starting level and average rate of
change over time across children. Such an
approach also allows researchers to determine
the influence of both fixed child characteristics
and time-specific events, such as parental
divorce, on change parameters of the trajectory
(Curran & Willoughby, 2003).
To date, there are two multiwave studies uti-
lizing the method of growth curve analysis to
test the effect of parental divorce on developmental
Parental Divorce and Child Mental Health
trajectories. Cherlin, Chase-Lansdale, and McRae
(1998) compare mental health trajectories in a
British cohort born in a 1-week period in 1958,
for whom data were gathered at ages 7, 11, 16,
23, and 33. The authors reported that parental
divorce in either childhood or adolescence has
an adverse effect on mental health in adulthood,
controlling for socioeconomic background at
age 7. In their 9-year longitudinal study of eco-
nomically deprived boys living in the city of
Montreal, Pagani, Tremblay, Vitaro, Kerr, and
McDuff (1998) fail to find any significant dif-
ferences in the delinquency trajectories for boys
of divorcing families compared with their coun-
terparts in intact families. Neither study
included in their models a range of predivorce
family characteristics nor was there a test of the
stress relief hypothesis.
Importantly, researchers have not used
growth curve analyses to distinguish the effects
associated with being a child of divorce from
those attributable to going through parental
divorce. This distinction, accomplished by spec-
ifying parental divorce both as a fixed child
characteristic and as a time-varying variable,
means that researchers can simultaneously as-
sess three different ways in which parental di-
vorce influences child mental health outcomes.
By testing the effect of being a child of divorce
on initial status and rate of change in child men-
tal health problems, researchers can determine
whether children whose parents eventually
divorce start off with more mental health prob-
lems than children whose families remain intact
(intercept) and whether there is a differential
rate of change in mental health problems among
children of divorce as their parents move closer
to the point of separation (slope). A time-vary-
ing variable for parental divorce represents the
instantaneous mental health effect of the transi-
tion to a single-parent household (Curran &
Willoughby, 2003; Singer & Willett, 2003). By
adding a time-varying variable that assesses
when the divorce event occurs, the rate of
change parameter for being a child of divorce be-
comes a conditional rate of change and is now
interpreted as the effect of being a child of
divorce on the rate of change in mental health
problems, given that a divorce has not yet
occurred. Specifying a model in this way is best
exploited when there are relatively short intervals
between observations so that the short-term men-
tal health responses of children to the event of
parental divorce can be clearly seen.
1289
Utilizing three cycles of data from a longitudi-
nal Canadian survey on the social determinants
of child health, this study prospectively follows
children of ages 4–7 living in two–biological
parent families over a 4-year period. I determine
whether children whose parents divorce during
this period exhibit significantly different mental
health trajectories, that is, differences in initial
mental health status, rate of change, and change
associated with the divorce event, compared to
children whose parents remain married. Subse-
quently, I test whether observed significant ef-
fects of parental divorce on child mental health
trajectories are spurious to the extent that effects
disappear after adjustment for predivorce paren-
tal socioeconomic and psychosocial resources.
Finally, I test whether the effect of parental divorce
on child mental health depends on predivorce
levels of family dysfunction.
METHOD
Sample
Designed to track the development, health, and
well-being of a nationally representative sample
of Canadian children over time, the National
Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth
(NLSCY) was launched in 1994 and continues
to reinterview the original cohort of children
every 2 years. Of 15,579 households identified
in 1994 as having at least one dependent child
younger than the age of 12, 13,439 households
agreed to participate in the survey, with a
response rate of 86.3%. Typically, one child
was randomly selected from each household,
with up to four siblings selected in some house-
holds, which resulted in information gathered
on 22,831 children in 1994. Because of sample
restrictions after the first cycle (children who
participated in another national survey were
selected into the first cycle of the NLSCY but
not reinterviewed), the longitudinal sample
comprises 16,903 children of ages 0–11 in 1994
nested within 11,142 households, with 88.3%
of these children participating in the third cycle
of data collection (Statistics Canada, 2000).
The current study is based on children who
participate in the first three cycles of the NLSCY
and who, at initial interview, are between the
ages of 4 and 7 (n ¼ 4,034). The restricted age
range was necessary because child mental health
was assessed similarly in each cycle only for
1290
children between the ages of 4 and 11. To ensure
that responses are comparable over time, I retain
cases in which the most knowledgeable parent,
either the biological mother or the biological
father of the child, is the same person each time
(n ¼ 3,655, 90.6%). The sample is further
restricted to children who are living in a two–
biological parent household in 1994 (n ¼ 2,897,
79.3%). Children who subsequently lose a parent
through death and children whose parent remar-
ries or cohabits after divorce (n ¼ 20, 0.6%) are
excluded from this analysis because loss of a
parent through death is a fundamentally different
event from divorce, and because there were too
few cases for more refined analysis. Listwise
deletion for missing information (n ¼ 58, 2.0%)
on either the dependent or the explanatory varia-
bles led to further reductions resulting in a total
sample size of 2,819 children from 2,479 house-
holds; of these, 167 children (5.9%) experienced
a parental divorce by 1998. The clustering of
children within households (1.14) is minimal
(Kish, 1965), and results of the analyses that ran-
domly selected one child from the 340 house-
holds containing two children did not differ from
results using the larger sample; therefore, models
reported in this study are based on the sample of
2,819 children.
Measures
Child mental health. In each cycle, the same
parent responds to an identical set of questions
concerning the child’s mental health. Anxiety/
depression is a seven-item scale that asks the
parent to indicate whether it is never, some-
times, or often true (scored 0, 1, and 2 consecu-
tively) that the child seems to be unhappy, sad,
or depressed; is not as happy as other children;
is too fearful or anxious; is worried, cries a lot;
appears miserable, is unhappy, tearful, or dis-
tressed; and is nervous, high strung, or tense.
Responses are summed to produce a scale that
ranges from 0 to 14, with higher scores denot-
ing increasing levels of anxiety/depression.
Antisocial behavior is a six-item scale that asks
the parent to indicate whether it is never, some-
times, or often true (scored 0, 1, and 2 consecu-
tively) that the child cheats or tells lies; bullies
or is cruel or mean to others; kicks, bites, or hits
other children; threatens people; destroys his or
her own things; and destroys things belonging
to his or her family or other children. Responses
are summed to produce a scale ranging from 0 to
Journal of Marriage and Family
12, with higher scores representing greater lev-
els of antisocial behavior. Items in the anxiety/
depression and antisocial behavior scales are
taken from an established inventory on child
mental health, the Child Behavior Checklist
(Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1983). Both scales
exhibit acceptable levels of internal reliability
(Cronbach’s alpha ¼ .77 for anxiety/depression
and .83 for antisocial behavior).
Parental divorce. I code parental divorce in two
ways. To identify children of parental divorce,
parental divorce is coded as a dummy variable
that distinguishes between children whose par-
ents divorce during the course of the survey
and children whose parents remain married
(coded 1 in every cycle if parents divorced by
1998 and 0 otherwise). I also code parental
divorce as a time-varying dummy variable that
evaluates if and when parents divorce (coded 1
if parents are divorced in current observation
period and 0 otherwise). The former variable
can be used to determine whether being a child
of divorce is associated with higher anxiety/
depression and antisocial behavior prior to divorce
as well as a differential rate of change over
time, whereas parental divorce as a time-
varying variable captures the mental health ef-
fect of going through parental divorce as it occurs.
Socioeconomic resources. Derived by Statistics
Canada (2000), income adequacy in 1994 is
a categorical measure based on the parent’s
report of household income for the past 12
months and family size. Originally created with
five levels, I collapse the two lowest income
adequacy groups because of small sample size
and create dummy variables for four levels of
income adequacy in 1994: low and low-middle,
middle, and high-middle, with high income
adequacy as the omitted reference group (see
Appendix for Statistics Canada’s derivation of
income adequacy). Education of the parent in
1994 compares those with less than high school,
completed high school, and some postsecondary
with the reference category, completed postsec-
ondary degree or diploma. Homeowner in 1994
compares families who own their usual place of
residence in 1994 with those who rent (coded 1
for homeowners and 0 for renters).
Psychosocial resources. Marital satisfaction in
1994 rates the parent’s satisfaction with the
spouse on a scale from 0 to 10, with higher
Parental Divorce and Child Mental Health
scores representing higher levels of marital
satisfaction. Family dysfunction in 1994, com-
prised of 12 items from the general scale of the
McMaster Family Assessment Device, asks the
parent to indicate whether he or she strongly
agrees, agrees, disagrees, or strongly disagrees
(assigned a value of 0–3, respectively) with
statements about the level of communication,
trust, support, and conflict within the family
unit. With acceptable levels of internal reliabil-
ity observed for the entire NLSCY sample
(Cronbach’s alpha ¼ .88), this research instru-
ment has been shown by others to demonstrate
high reliability and validity (Byles, Byrne,
Boyle, & Offord, 1988). Summed items pro-
duce a scale ranging from 0 to 36, with higher
scores representing higher levels of family dys-
function. Parental depression in 1994 is as-
sessed using an abbreviated version of the
Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression
Scale, a well-known depression inventory
(Radloff, 1977). Responses to 12 questions about
the frequency of depressive symptoms in the
past week including poor appetite, feelings of
hopelessness, and restless sleep are categorized
as rarely or none of the time, some or a little of
the time, occasionally or a moderate amount of
the time, and most or all of the time (scored
0–3, respectively). Items are summed to pro-
duce a scale ranging from 0 to 36, with higher-
values indicating increased levels of
depression. The depression scale has acceptable
reliability (Cronbach’s alpha ¼ .82). All three
scales are centered around their sample mean.
Control variables. In all models, I control for
age and gender of the parent and child in 1994.
Parent age and child age at initial interview are
measured in years and centered around their
respective sample means. Gender for parents
and children is dummy coded (1 ¼ male, 0 ¼
female).
Analysis
When data are collected on the same children
over multiple time points, the observations
themselves are no longer independent, and nor-
mal regression analysis becomes inappropriate.
Growth curve models take into account the
clustering of observations by estimating a single
model that describes data at two levels: within-
child and between-child. Within-child differen-
ces, specified in a Level 1 model, summarize
1291
the observed pattern of child mental health
measures across measurement occasions into
a functional relationship with time. A typical
trajectory can be specified as follows:
Yit ¼ p0i 1 p1i Xit
where Yit represents mental health status for the
ith child at time t, Xit stands for time at each
measurement occasion for the ith child, p0i is
the intercept of the underlying trajectory for the
ith child, and p1i is the slope of the underlying
trajectory of the ith child. In this analysis, time
is assigned a value of zero at initial interview,
and subsequent cycles are assigned the differ-
ence in years since initial interview. Therefore,
the intercept meaningfully refers to average
levels of child mental health at initial interview,
and time represents the average child’s linear
rate of change in mental health per year. With
only three available cycles for analysis, a linear
rate of change is sufficient even when actual
change over time is more complex (Singer &
Willett, 2003).
Between-child differences are estimated by
treating the parameters of these trajectories, p0i
and p1i, as dependent variables in a Level 2
model. Child-specific deviations from the
average initial mental health and average rate of
change are captured by adding a random effect,
l0i and l1i, respectively, to p0i and p1i. The
larger the size of the random effect, the greater
the variability among children in terms of initial
status or change over time. Adding child-
specific variables such as child gender and age
at initial interview as unique predictors of p0i
and p1i makes it possible to account for signifi-
cant, unexplained variation in both initial status
and rate of change in mental health status.
Explanatory variables can also be specified in
the Level 1 model, as is done here with the
inclusion of parental divorce as a time-varying
variable, which represents parental divorce as
a time-specific ‘‘shock’’ that consequently dis-
places the overall trajectory of child mental
health (Curran & Willoughby, 2003). The ran-
dom effect for time-varying parental divorce in
this analysis was constrained to be zero on the
basis of preliminary analysis that showed it was
not statistically significant.
With a strong positive skew, the dependent
variables, child anxiety/depression and antisocial
behavior, violate the distributional assumption of
normality. To avoid predicting negative values, I
1292 Journal of Marriage and Family

instead assume that these variables are Poisson TABLE 1. PREDIVORCE CHARACTERISTICS, FOR
distributed, such that the conditional mean of CHILDREN WHOSE PARENTS REMAIN MARRIED AND
child anxiety/depression and antisocial behavior FOR CHILDREN WHOSE PARENTS ARE DIVORCED BY
are roughly equivalent to their variances. The 1998, NLSCY, 1994–1998 (N ¼ 2,819)
Poisson regression model, which utilizes a log-
Parents Parents
link function to ensure predicted values remain
Remain Divorced
positive, belongs to the family of generalized lin-
Married by 1998
ear models (McCullagh & Nelder, 1989).
Child is male 51.5 49.5
Sampling Weights Child age in 1994 5.5 (1.1) 5.1 (1.0)
(in years)
Sampling weights are used to adjust for a com- Parent age in 1994 34.8 (5.0) 32.5** (3.8)
plex multistage sample design and nonresponse (in years)
of the original cohort over time. All descriptive Parent education in 1994
statistics are weighted, although growth curve Less than high school 14.2 14.1
models, estimated using PROC NLMIXED in Completed high school 20.8 27.9
SAS, are unable to incorporate weights. Some postsecondary 27.0 26.3
Completed 38.0 31.7
postsecondary
Income adequacy in 1994
RESULTS
Low/low-middle 10.5 16.2
Table 1 describes differences at initial interview income adequacy
between children whose parents remain married Middle income adequacy 35.9 35.8
for the duration of the survey and children whose High-middle 36.6 36.4
parents are divorced by 1998. Children in both income adequacy
groups are equally divided by gender, with an High income adequacy 17.0 11.6
overall average child age in 1994 of approxi- Homeowner in 1994 83.0 75.6
mately 5.5 years. The average age of the parent Marital satisfaction in 1994 8.5 (1.7) 7.1** (2.2)
in 1994 is significantly lower for those children Family dysfunction in 1994 7.4 (5.1) 9.3** (5.0)
whose parents divorce. Although in the expected Parental depression in 1994 4.0 (4.5) 5.6* (4.6)
direction, initial levels of socioeconomic resour- Anxiety/depression
ces are not significantly different between the 1994 2.1 (2.2) 2.5* (2.2)
two groups of children. Parents who later divorce 1996 2.2 (2.2) 3.2** (2.8)
initially report significantly less marital satisfac- 1998 2.4 (2.4) 3.6** (2.5)
tion and greater family dysfunction and parental Antisocial behavior
depression than parents in intact households. 1994 1.2 (1.6) 1.6** (1.7)
Levels of anxiety/depression and antisocial be- 1996 0.9 (1.4) 1.4** (1.7)
havior at each wave are higher on average for 1998 0.8 (1.4) 1.4** (1.7)
children whose parents divorce by 1998 relative n 2,652 167
to children in intact households. Note: Statistics are reported as means (SD) and proportions.
I turn to longitudinal analysis using the *p , .05. **p , .01. ***p , .001.
repeated observations of the sample of 2,819
children to create a person-period observation
datafile of 8,301 cases. The baseline trajectories behavior and also in their rate of change over
for child anxiety/depression and antisocial be- time.
havior (Table 2) indicate that average levels Tables 3 and 4 present growth curve models
of child anxiety/depression increase over the for child anxiety/depression and antisocial
course of the survey, whereas antisocial behav- behavior, respectively. Model 1 in each table
ior decreases over time. These general patterns, adds parental divorce to the baseline trajectories
however, conceal significant random variation of child anxiety/depression and antisocial
in initial status and rate of change in both behavior. Unadjusted for predivorce characteris-
child anxiety/depression and antisocial behav- tics of the child and the child’s family, the
ior. Thus, children vary widely in their initial model for child anxiety/depression suggests
levels of anxiety/depression and antisocial that, even before divorce, children of divorcing
Parental Divorce and Child Mental Health
TABLE 2. UNCONDITIONAL MODELS FOR TRAJECTORIES OF CHILD ANXIETY/DEPRESSION AND
ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR, NLSCY, 1994–1998 (N ¼ 2,819)
Anxiety/Depression
B SE
Fixed effects
M initial status, b00 .427*** .022
M growth rate, b10 .035*** .007
VC SE
Random effects
Initial status, l0i .625*** .033
Growth rate, l1i .015*** .002

2 log likelihood 31,486
N obs 8,301
Note: VC ¼ variance component. obs ¼ observations.
*p , .05. **p , .01. ***p , .001.
parents exhibit significantly higher levels of
anxiety/depression than children whose parents
remain married (b01 ¼ .169, SE ¼ .076, p ,
.03), but they do not exhibit an increased rate of
change in anxiety/depression over time (b11 ¼

.004, SE ¼ .036, p , .92). The time-specific
effect of parental divorce indicates that divorce
subsequently increases levels of child anxiety/
depression by 28% (e.247). For child antisocial
behavior (Model 1, Table 4), initial differences
are significant (b01 ¼ .373, SE ¼ .095, p ,
.001), with children whose parents eventually
divorce displaying higher levels of antisocial
behavior in 1994 relative to children whose par-
ents remain married. Neither the rate of change
in antisocial behavior for children whose par-
ents divorce nor the time-specific effect of
parental divorce is statistically significant.
For anxiety/depression (Model 2, Table 3),
adding predivorce child and family characteris-
tics accounts for all of the initial differences
between children of eventually divorcing and
intact households, reducing the coefficient by
more than 95% ([.169
.008]/.169). Predi-
vorce child and family characteristics, however,
explain little of the time-specific effect of paren-
tal divorce, reducing the coefficient by only 5%
([.247
.235]/.247). Higher initial levels of
child anxiety/depression are associated with
greater age of the child at initial interview, hav-
ing a parent who is younger than average, living
in a home that is rented rather than owned, and
having a parent who reports lower marital satis-
faction, higher family dysfunction, and higher
levels of depression. Adjusted for other terms in
1293
Antisocial Behavior
B SE

.245*** .031

.134*** .012
VC SE
.946*** .055
.011*** .003
21,576
8,301
the model, the effects of parental education are
significant but operate in an unexpected direc-
tion, with lower rates of child anxiety/depression
reported by parents with a high school educa-
tion or less compared to parents with a postsec-
ondary degree. Only child age has an effect on
the rate of change in child anxiety/depression,
with children who are older than average at ini-
tial interview reporting a flatter rate of increase
than younger children.
Adding predivorce child and family charac-
teristics (Model 2, Table 4) accounts for higher
initial levels of antisocial behavior among chil-
dren of eventually divorcing parents, reducing
the coefficient by 67% ([.373
.123]/.373).
The rate of change for children of divorce and
the time-specific effect of parental divorce re-
main nonsignificant. Initial levels of child anti-
social behavior are higher among male and
younger children and among those whose house-
holds have a parent who is younger than aver-
age, are in the middle and high-middle income
adequacy categories rather than in the high in-
come adequacy group, are renters rather than
homeowners, and whose parent reports lower mar-
ital satisfaction, higher family dysfunction, and
higher levels of depression. The rate of change in
child antisocial behavior is associated only with
age of the parent, such that the older the parent is
at initial interview, the steeper the rate of decline
in child antisocial behavior over time.
The final models in Tables 3 and 4 test the
stress relief hypothesis by including an interac-
tion for family dysfunction in 1994 and the
time-varying variable for parental divorce. For
1294 Journal of Marriage and Family

TABLE 3. EFFECTS OF PARENTAL DIVORCE ON TRAJECTORIES OF CHILD ANXIETY/DEPRESSION,

NLSCY, 1994–1998 (N OBS ¼ 8,301)

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

B SE B SE B SE

Fixed effects
Initial status, p0i
Intercept, b00 .414*** .023 .648*** .079 .648*** .079
Child of parental divorce, b01 .169* .076 .008 .075 .007 .075
Child is male, b02 .025 .038 .025 .038
Child age, b03 .073*** .018 .072*** .018
Parent is male, b04 .023 .150 .022 .150
Parent age, b05
.017*** .004
.017*** .004
Parent educationa
Less than high school, b06
.167* .065
.167* .065
Completed high school, b07
.150** .054
.150** .054
Some postsecondary, b08
.054 .049
.054 .049
Income adequacy in 1994b
Low and low-middle, b09
.075 .084
.075 .084
Middle, b010
.080 .066
.080 .066
High-middle, b011 .013 .064 .014 .064
Homeowner in 1994, b012
.154** .054
.154** .054
Marital satisfaction in 1994, b013
.036** .012
.036** .012
Family dysfunction in 1994, b014 .011** .004 .011** .004
Parental depression in 1994, b015 .044*** .004 .044*** .004
Linear rate of change, p1i
Intercept, b10 .032*** .007 .007 .022 .007 .022
Child of parental divorce, b11
.004 .036 .009 .036 .013 .036
Child is male, b12 .005 .011 .005 .011
Child age, b13
.013** .005
.013** .005
Parent is male, b14 .011 .042 .011 .042
Parent age, b15 .002 .001 .002 .001
Parent educationa
Less than high school, b16 .010 .018 .010 .018
Completed high school, b17 .002 .015 .002 .015
Some postsecondary, b18 .001 .014 .001 .014
Income adequacy in 1994b
Low and low-middle, b19
.015 .024
.015 .024
Middle, b110 .016 .019 .015 .019
High-middle, b111 .005 .018 .004 .018
Homeowner in 1994, b112 .015 .015 .015 .015
Marital satisfaction in 1994, b113 .000 .003 .000 .003
Family dysfunction in 1994, b114
.002 .001
.002 .001
Parental depression in 1994, b115
.001 .001
.001 .001
Parental divorce, 1994–1998, p2i
Intercept, b20 .247* .106 .235* .106 .247* .110
Divorce 3 Family Dysfunction
in 1994, p3i
Intercept, b30
.011 .009

VC SE VC SE VC SE

Random effects
Initial level, l0i .624*** .033 .540*** .030 .539*** .030
Linear rate of change, l1i .015*** .002 .014*** .002 .014*** .002

2 log likelihood 31,452 31,197 31,195
df 8 36 37

Note: VC ¼ variance component. obs ¼ observations.

a
Reference category is postsecondary degree or diploma. bReference category is high income adequacy.
*p , .05. **p , .01. ***p , .001.
Parental Divorce and Child Mental Health 1295

TABLE 4. EFFECTS OF PARENTAL DIVORCE ON TRAJECTORIES OF CHILD ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR,

NLSCY, 1994–1998 (N OBS ¼ 8,301)

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

B SE B SE B SE

Fixed effects
Initial status, p0i
Intercept, b00
.272*** .032
.525*** .105
.526*** .105
Child of parental divorce, b01 .373*** .095 .123 .092 .116 .092
Child is male, b02 .468*** .049 .467*** .049
Child age, b03
.089*** .022
.089*** .022
Parent is male, b04 .292 .182 .298 .182
Parent age, b05
.021*** .006
.021*** .006
Parent educationa
Less than high school, b06
.004 .080
.007 .080
Completed high school, b07
.110 .068
.113 .068
Some postsecondary, b08
.046 .062
.046 .062
Income adequacy in 1994b
Low and low-middle, b09 .183 .108 .182 .108
Middle, b010 .246** .088 .247** .088
High-middle, b011 .193* .086 .195* .086
Homeowner in 1994, b012
.140* .068
.138* .068
Marital satisfaction in 1994, b013
.049** .015
.049** .015
Family dysfunction in 1994, b014 .021*** .006 .021*** .006
Parental depression in 1994, b015 .043*** .005 .043*** .005
Linear rate of change, p1i
Intercept, b10
.136*** .012
.128*** .033
.126*** .033
Child of parental divorce, b11 .070 .048 .084 .048 .082 .048
Child is male, b12 .003 .015 .003 .015
Child age, b13 .007 .007 .007 .007
Parent is male, b14
.031 .055
.034 .055
Parent age, b15
.004* .002
.004* .002
Parent educationa
Less than high school, b16 .036 .024 .036 .023
Completed high school, b17 .009 .021 .009 .021
Some postsecondary, b18 .008 .019 .008 .019
Income adequacy in 1994b
Low and low-middle, b19
.016 .033
.017 .032
Middle, b110
.013 .027
.015 .027
High-middle, b111
.026 .027
.027 .027
Homeowner in 1994, b112
.001 .020
.002 .020
Marital satisfaction in 1994, b113
.001 .004
.001 .004
Family dysfunction in 1994, b114
.001 .002
.001 .002
Parental depression in 1994, b115
.001 .001
.001 .001
Parental divorce, 1994–1998, p2i
Intercept, b20
.045 .143
.085 .143
.004 .147
Divorce 3 Family Dysfunction
in 1994, p3i
Intercept, b30
.030* .013

VC SE VC SE VC SE

Random effects
Initial level, l0i .938*** .055 .755*** .048 .754*** .048
Linear rate of change, l1i .011*** .003 .011*** .003 .011*** .003

2 log likelihood 21,549 21,187 21,182
df 8 36 37

Note: VC ¼ variance component. obs ¼ observations.

a
Reference category is postsecondary degree or diploma. bReference category is high income adequacy.
*p , .05. **p , .01. ***p , .001.
1296
child anxiety/depression, the interaction is not
significant in the model nor does the model pro-
vide a better fit than the main effects model.
The interaction is marginally significant for
antisocial behavior (b30 ¼
.03, SE ¼ .013,
p , .02), however, and there is a small improve-
ment in the fit of the model (v2 ¼ 5 . v2 1 df ¼
3.84). The interpretation of the interaction is
consistent with the stress relief hypothesis in
suggesting that the higher the level of family
dysfunction at initial interview, the greater the
reduction in antisocial behavior associated with
the experience of parental divorce.
The literature has inconsistently reported that
the effects of parental divorce are stronger for
boys than for girls (Morrison & Cherlin, 1995)
and for older than for younger children (Amato,
2001). Taking this into consideration, I ran mod-
els that tested interactions of parental divorce
with gender and age of child at time of divorce.
Results (not shown but available upon request)
indicate that parental divorce similarly affects the
mental health of boys and girls and that the
effects of parental divorce on anxiety/depression
are not significantly different for older compared
to younger children. The effect of age of child at
time of parental divorce on antisocial behavior
was significant, suggesting that older children
were more vulnerable to the mental health effects
of parental divorce. Although the fit of the model
was marginally better than the main effects
model, closer inspection revealed that it was only
for children aged 11 that divorce had a significant
effect. Because the small number of children in
this age group may have exerted undue influence,
I concluded that there was insufficient evidence
to retain the more complex model and reverted
back to the main effects model. Further analysis
on this issue with a dataset that encompasses
a wider range of children’s ages at time of paren-
tal divorce is needed to clarify age-specific effects
of parental divorce on child mental health.
DISCUSSION
To illuminate the ways in which children’s re-
sponses to parental divorce over time are a func-
tion of their unique developmental and social
characteristics, researchers need a process-
oriented approach to divorce (Amato, 2000). Such
an approach can advance knowledge on three
fronts. First, a process-oriented approach can
rigorously test whether the effects of parental
divorce persist despite predivorce child and
Journal of Marriage and Family
family characteristics, allowing researchers to
separate potentially spurious effects from effects
directly attributable to the loss of a parent. A
second area for progress involves identifying
specific features that make children particularly
vulnerable or resilient during the divorce pro-
cess. Thus, the effects of parental divorce may
depend on the child’s gender and developmen-
tal stage and on the family environment prior to
divorce. Finally, a process-oriented approach
can track changes in child adjustment over time,
allowing researchers to test whether mental
health effects associated with the crisis of di-
vorce fade over time or are exacerbated by the
emergence of secondary stressors (Amato). The
purpose of the current study was to contribute
to knowledge on the first two issues.
Although the importance of conceptualizing
parental divorce as a process is recognized, few
researchers also attempt to characterize child
mental health as a dynamic developmental pro-
cess. Growth curve analysis can provide insight
into the temporal nature of child mental health
development and investigate how parental
divorce modifies child mental health trajecto-
ries. I use growth curve analysis in a way that
others have not, by using both a child-level and
a time-varying variable for parental divorce,
which has the advantage of separating out men-
tal health differences that are observable before
and leading up to the divorce event from those
directly associated with the loss of the parent
from the household.
The results of this study not only confirm but
also build on what has been learned in two-
wave panel studies. First, by simply comparing
child and family characteristics in the two
groups of children, I find that at initial inter-
view, significant differences already exist
between households that remain intact and those
that divorce. Relative to children from intact
families, children whose parents are divorced
by 1998 live in households with significantly
fewer psychosocial resources. Specifically, their
parents report lower levels of marital satisfac-
tion and higher levels of depression and family
dysfunction than continuously married parents.
The finding of fewer psychosocial resources
among parents who later divorce is consistent
with previous research (Block et al., 1988;
Devine & Forehand, 1996; Wade & Cairney,
2000). The failure to find differences in socio-
economic resources is puzzling, however, in
light of statistically significant differences
Parental Divorce and Child Mental Health
reported by others (Sun & Li, 2001). It is possi-
ble that these relationships fall just short of sta-
tistical significance because of the relatively
small number of divorces over this period, such
that differences might emerge in subsequent
cycles as more children in the sample experi-
ence parental divorce.
Differences in anxiety/depression and antiso-
cial behavior are also apparent. Children of
divorce exhibit significantly more mental health
problems in every wave than children whose
parents remain married, making it clear that
these problems exist well in advance of the
divorce event. These comparisons illustrate that
child mental health is associated with the pro-
cess of divorce, but because divorce can occur
in either the second or the third wave, they do
not reveal mental health responses that specifi-
cally accompany the event of parental divorce.
Mental health effects prior to parental divorce
versus those occurring after the event are fully
disentangled in the growth curve model. Results
indicate that, relative to children in intact house-
holds, children whose parents divorce over the
course of the survey exhibit slightly higher lev-
els of anxiety/depression prior to divorce, and
there is a further increase in anxiety/depression
in response to the divorce itself. Children whose
parents later divorce exhibit significantly higher
antisocial behavior at initial interview compared
to children whose parents remain married, but
antisocial behavior does not increase in the
aftermath of parental divorce. For neither anxi-
ety/depression nor antisocial behavior does the
rate of change for children of divorce differ sig-
nificantly compared to that for children in intact
families, although the coefficient for antisocial
behavior approaches statistical significance.
Having properly specified that differences in
child mental health can be observed before and
after parental divorce for child anxiety/depres-
sion and before, but not after, divorce for child
antisocial behavior, I turn to the two research
questions posed in this study. Given that much
of the difference in child mental health is evident
before the divorce event, adding predivorce
parental socioeconomic and psychosocial resour-
ces to the model not only tests whether the effect
of the transition itself on child mental health is
spurious but also evaluates whether these resour-
ces explain predivorce differences. I find that
predivorce parental resources fully account for
excess levels of anxiety/depression and antisocial
behavior of children of divorce at initial inter-
1297
view, but explain little of the association between
making the transition to a single-parent house-
hold and child anxiety/depression. Previous stud-
ies, assessing change in mental health pre- and
postdivorce, have mostly found that differences
persist after adjusting for predivorce family char-
acteristics (Hanson, 1999; Jekielek, 1998; Morrison
& Coiro, 1999; but see Cherlin et al., 1991). It
is possible that if these authors had or were able
to include a wider range of predivorce family
characteristics, such as are included in my mod-
els, observed effects could have been further
reduced or eliminated. The advantage of the
growth curve model relative to the change
model is that I can determine that predivorce
family characteristics explain why children of
divorce have more mental health problems even
before divorce. I can also show that the loss
of a parent from the household is accompanied
by an additional increase in child anxiety/
depression that operates independently of pre-
existing differences between children of divorce
and children in intact households.
The second research question involved a test of
the stress relief hypothesis. I found no evidence
for lower levels of child anxiety/depression when
divorce happens in a highly dysfunctional family
and only found limited support for antisocial
behavior. Thus, the higher the level of family
dysfunction prior to divorce, the greater the re-
duction in child antisocial behavior after a paren-
tal divorce. Although these findings do not
fully bear out what has been reported by others
(Hanson, 1999; Jekielek, 1998; Morrison &
Coiro, 1999), Jekielek has suggested that it takes
time for children to recover from the event of
divorce and that signs of stress relief should
become more apparent as time passes. As more
cycles of the NLSCY become available, re-
searchers should continue to explore whether
parental divorce operates as stress relief for chil-
dren in highly conflicted families.
Another area for future research involves
exploring whether children of divorce who have
witnessed or who have been the recipients of
violence in the home also experience stress re-
lief when their parents separate. The lack of
adequate measures of family violence in the
current study precluded testing such hypothe-
ses. Although family dysfunction assesses the
extent to which families fail to develop emo-
tionally fulfilling relationships, it is likely that
family dynamics such as violence and abuse pose
mental health challenges that are qualitatively
1298
different from family dysfunction and thus
should be investigated in their own right.
As information continues to be gathered on
this sample of children, the advantages of treat-
ing parental divorce as a process can be more
fully realized. Adding just one more cycle will
allow researchers to track more precisely how
children adjust to parental divorce over time,
resolving an outstanding issue as to whether the
mental health effects of parental divorce attenu-
ate or intensify with time. Although I found that
loss of a parent from the household increases
child anxiety/depression, divorce is not the
same experience for all children. Thus, patterns
of adjustment may depend not only on what
happens prior to divorce but also on what hap-
pens in the months and years following parental
divorce. For example, secondary stressors, such
as economic hardship and residential relocation,
that emerge as a result of divorce may exacer-
bate or prolong the process of adjustment.
Understanding how secondary stressors mediate
and moderate the mental health effects of paren-
tal divorce is another important direction for
further research.
Limitations
There are two limitations to the present study.
First, perspectives on family life and child mental
health are based on the perceptions of only one
parent, whose views may differ from those of the
child or other family members, and who may be
predisposed to respond in a similar way to differ-
ent constructs, leading to more statistically sig-
nificant associations than actually exist
(Sweeting, 2001). Unfortunately, a high propor-
tion of missing cases for teacher-reported child
mental health and the restriction of self-report
information to children of ages 10 and older pre-
vented me from utilizing other informants in the
survey. Future analysis of the NLSCY utilizing
the self-reports of older children can overcome
this limitation, but will only inform understand-
ing of the effects of parental divorce on children
who are older than children in the current sam-
ple. Indeed, my findings concerning the mental
health effects of parental divorce cannot be gen-
eralized beyond the period of middle childhood.
Thus, more research is needed to determine
whether parental divorce exerts similar mental
health effects on adolescents.
A second limitation of this analysis is the
untested assumption that parents invest all
Journal of Marriage and Family
available resources in their children. A recent
study finds that, prior to divorce, the return on
parental investments is lower in families that
eventually divorce (Sun & Li, 2001), suggesting
that there are differences in the distribution of
resources in these families compared to families
that remain intact. One could also argue that
one or both parents may try to compensate or
otherwise shield their children from deficits in
certain areas, and these efforts may serve to
alter the impact of parental divorce. Addressing
this issue will require research that moves
beyond simply taking an inventory of parental
resources and instead provides a better under-
standing of the processes through which parents
distribute resources to their children.
CONCLUSION
This study has found that the family dynamics
that increase the likelihood of later divorce first
act to increase the mental health problems of
dependent children. Controlling for these predi-
vorce differences, the event of parental divorce
is accompanied by higher levels of child anxi-
ety/depression and, for children living in highly
dysfunctional families, lower levels of child
antisocial behavior. A process-oriented approach
to the effects of parental divorce on child mental
health stands to advance considerably this field
of knowledge, by enabling researchers to dis-
cern more clearly how child mental health is
uniquely affected by child and family character-
istics that precede and predict marital dissolu-
tion, as well as effects that flow directly
from the divorce event and emerging subse-
quent stressors.
NOTE
This research was supported by a Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada postdoctoral fel-
lowship and the New Investigators Network of the Canadian
Institute for Advanced Research.
REFERENCES
Achenbach, T. M., & Edelbrock, C. S. (1983). Man-
ual for the Child Behavior Checklist and Revised
Child Behavior Profile. Burlington: University of
Vermont.
Amato, P. R. (2000). The consequences of divorce
for adults and children. Journal of Marriage and
the Family, 62, 1269–1287.
Parental Divorce and Child Mental Health
Amato, P. R. (2001). Children of divorce in the
1990s: An update of the Amato and Keith (1991)
meta-analysis. Journal of Family Psychology, 15,
355–370.
Amato, P. R., Loomis, L. S., & Booth, A. (1995).
Parental divorce, marital conflict and offspring
well-being during early adulthood. Social Forces,
73, 895–915.
Ambert, A. (2002). Divorce: Facts, causes, and
consequences (2nd ed.). Ottawa: Vanier Institute
of the Family.
Block, J., Block, J. E., & Gjerde, P. F. (1988).
Parental functioning and the home environment
in families of divorce: Prospective and concurrent
analyses. Journal of the American Academy of
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 27, 207–213.
Boyle, M. H. (2002). Home ownership and the emo-
tional and behavioral problems of children and
youth. Child Development, 73, 883–892.
Bradley, R. H., & Corwyn, R. F. (2002). Socio-
economic status and child development. Annual
Review of Psychology, 53, 371–399.
Byles, J., Byrne, C., Boyle, M., & Offord, D. (1988).
Ontario Child Health Study: Reliability and valid-
ity of the General Functional Sub-Scale of the
McMaster Family Assessment Device. Family
Process, 27, 97–104.
Carlson, M. J., & Corcoran, M. E. (2001). Family
structure and children’s behavior and cognitive
outcomes. Journal of Marriage and Family, 63,
779–792.
Cherlin, A. J., Chase-Lansdale, P. L., & McRae, C.
(1998). Effects of parental divorce on mental
health throughout the life course. American Socio-
logical Review, 63, 239–249.
Cherlin, A. J., Furstenberg, F. F., Jr., Chase-
Lansdale, P. L., Kiernan, K. E., Robins, P. K.,
Morrison, D. R., & Teitler, J. O. (1991). Longitu-
dinal studies of effects of divorce on children in
Great Britain and the United States. Science, 252,
1386–1389.
Corcoran, M. E., & Chaudry, A. (1997). The dynam-
ics of child poverty. Future of Children, 7, 40–54.
Curran, P. J., & Willoughby, M. T. (2003). Implica-
tions of latent trajectory models for the study of
developmental psychopathology. Development
and Psychopathology, 15, 581–612.
Devine, D., & Forehand, R. (1996). Cascading
toward divorce: The roles of marital and child fac-
tors. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychol-
ogy, 64, 424–427.
Duncan, G. J., Brooks-Gunn, J., & Klebanov, P. K.
(1994). Economic deprivation and early childhood
development. Child Development, 65, 296–318.
1299
Fishman, E. A., & Meyers, S. A. (2000). Marital sat-
isfaction and child adjustment: Direct and medi-
ated pathways. Contemporary Family Therapy, 22,
437–452.
Goodman, S. H., & Gotlib, I. H. (1999). Risk for psy-
chopathology in the children of depressed mothers:
A developmental model for understanding mech-
anisms of transmission. Psychological Review,
106, 458–490.
Hanson, T. L. (1999). Does parent conflict explain
why divorce is negatively associated with child
welfare? Social Forces, 77, 1283–1315.
Hanson, T. L., McLanahan, S. S., & Thomson, E.
(1998). Windows on divorce: Before and after.
Social Science Research, 27, 329–349.
Hauser, R. M. (1994). Measuring socioeconomic
status in studies of child development. Child
Development, 65, 1541–1545.
Hetherington, E. M., & Stanley-Hagan, M. (1999).
The adjustment of children with divorced parents:
A risk and resiliency perspective. Journal of Child
Psychology and Psychiatry, 40, 129–140.
Hoffman, S. D., & Duncan, G. J. (1995). The effect
of income, wages, and AFDC benefits on marital
disruption. Journal of Human Resources, 30,
19–41.
Jekielek, S. M. (1998). Parental conflict, marital
disruption and children’s emotional well-being.
Social Forces, 76, 905–935.
Kelly, J. B., & Emery, R. E. (2003). Children’s
adjustment following divorce: Risk and resiliency
perspectives. Family Relations, 52, 352–362.
Kish, L. (1965). Survey sampling. New York: Wiley.
Lambert, E. W., Doucette, A., & Bickman, L. (2001).
Measuring mental health outcomes with pre-post
designs. Journal of Behavioral Health Services
and Research, 28, 273–286.
Lipman, E. L., Offord, D. R., & Boyle, M. H. (1994).
Relation between economic disadvantage and psy-
chosocial morbidity in children. Canadian Medical
Association Journal, 151, 431–437.
McCullagh, P., & Nelder, J. A. (1989). General-
ized linear models. London: Chapman and Hall.
Morris, P. A., & Gennetian, L. A. (2003). Identifying
the effects of income on children’s development
using experimental data. Journal of Marriage and
Family, 65, 716–729.
Morrison, D. R., & Cherlin, A. J. (1995). The divorce
process and young children’s well-being: A pro-
spective analysis. Journal of Marriage and the
Family, 57, 800–812.
Morrison, D. R., & Coiro, M. J. (1999). Parent
conflict and marital disruption: Do children benefit
1300 Journal of Marriage and Family

when high-conflict marriages are dissolved? Jour-
nal of Marriage and the Family, 61, 626–637.
Orbuch, T. L., Veroff, J., Hassan, H., & Horrocks, J.
(2002). Who will divorce: A 14-year longitudinal
study of Black couples and White couples. Journal
of Social and Personal Relationships, 19, 179–202.
Otto, H. (1998). Husbands’ and wives’ resources and
marital dissolution. Journal of Marriage and the
Family, 60, 674–689.
Pagani, L., Tremblay, R. E., Vitaro, F., Kerr, M., &
McDuff, P. (1998). The impact of family transition
on the development of delinquency in adolescent
boys: A 9-year longitudinal study. Journal of
Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 39, 489–499.
Radloff, L. (1977). The CES-D: A self-report depres-
sion scale for research in the general population.
Applied Psychological Measurement, 1, 388–401.
Sarigiani, P. A., Heath, P. A., & Camarena, P. M.
(2003). The significance of parental depressed mood
for young adolescents’ emotional and family experi-
ences. Journal of Early Adolescence, 23, 241–267.
Singer, J., & Willett, J. B. (2003). Applied longitudi-
nal data analysis: Modeling change and event
occurrence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Statistics Canada. (2000). Microdata user guide:
National Longitudinal Survey of Children and
Youth, Cycle 3 (Catalogue No. 89M0015XCB).
Ottawa: Ministry of Industry.
Sun, Y., & Li, Y. (2001). Marital disruption, parental
investment and children’s academic achievement.
Journal of Family Issues, 22, 27–62.
Sweeting, H. (2001). Our family, whose perspective?
An investigation of children’s family life and
health. Journal of Adolescence, 24, 229–250.
Wade, T. J., & Cairney, J. (2000). Major depressive
disorder and marital transition among mothers:
Results from a national panel study. Journal of
Nervous and Mental Disease, 188, 741–750.
Wheaton, B. (1990). Life transitions, role histories
and mental health. American Sociological Review,
55, 209–223.

APPENDIX. FIVE LEVELS OF INCOME ADEQUACY DERIVED BY STATISTICS CANADA BY COMBINING

HOUSEHOLD INCOME (CANADIAN DOLLARS) AND HOUSEHOLD SIZE

Level of Income Adequacy Household Income Household Size

Lowest income adequacy ,$10,000 1–4 persons

,$15,000 5 or more persons
Low-middle income adequacy $10,000–$14,999 1 or 2 persons
$10,000–$19,999 3 or 4 persons
$15,000–$29,999 5 or more persons
Middle income adequacy $15,000–$29,999 1 or 2 persons
$20,000–$39,999 3 or 4 persons
$30,000–$59,999 5 or more persons
High-middle income adequacy $30,000–$59,999 1 or 2 persons
$40,000–$79,999 3 or 4 persons
$60,000–$79,999 5 or more persons
Highest income adequacy $60,000 or more 1 or 2 persons
$80,000 or more 3 or more persons