Is Divorce More Painful When Couples Have Children? Evidence From Long-Term Panel Data on Multiple Domains of Well-being

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• 作者：Thomas Leopold ; Matthijs Kalmijn
• 关键词：Divorce ; Well ; being ; Children ; Panel data ; Random ; effects models
• 刊名：Demography
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：December 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：53
• 期：6
• 页码：1717-1742
• 全文大小：625KB
• 刊物主题：Demography; Sociology, general; Population Economics; Medicine/Public Health, general; Geography, general;
• 出版者：Springer US
• ISSN：1533-7790
• 卷排序：53

文摘

Theoretical models of the divorce process suggest that marital breakup is more painful in the presence of children, yet little is known about the role of children as a moderator of divorce effects on adult well-being. The present study addresses this gap of research based on long-term panel data from Germany (SOEP). Following individuals over several years before and after divorce, we investigated whether the impact of divorce on multiple measures of well-being varied by the presence and age of children before marital breakup. Three central findings emerged from the analysis. First, declines in well-being were sharper in the presence of children, and these moderator effects were larger if children were younger. Second, domain-specific measures of well-being revealed gender differences in the moderating role of children. Mothers sustained deeper drops in economic well-being than did fathers; the reverse was true for family well-being. Third, most of these disproportionate declines in the well-being of divorced parents did not persist in the long term given that higher rates of adaptation leveled out the gaps compared with childless divorcees.