Children's Experience of Marital Disruption

摘要

Following a review of literature on the impact of marital disruption on children, this paper addresses three questions: (1) What is the cumulative probability that by a given age a child will have experienced a single - parent family as a consequence of marital disruption; (2) Given marital disruption, what is the cumulative probability that the mother will have remarried within a given number of years after the disruption; and (3) What is the average duration of experience in a single - parent family. Based on data from the 1973 Family Growth Survey, a national probability sample of 9,797 women under age 45 who had ever been married or who at that time were mothers who had never married, estimates indicate that over one - third of all children spend a portion of their childhood when their mothers are between marriages. Most of these children will eventually be part of a second marriage. The average time spent ''between marriages'' before 18 is four and a half years, and for a substantial minority, the period before remarriage is much longer. Data indicate that a majority of black children born to ever - married mothers experience marital disruption. Such disruptions tend to occur at younger ages and to last much longer than is the case among whites. The primary difference made by education is a shorter duration of disruption among the children of mothers who completed high school, but did not attend college. There is a strong relationship between the age of the mother at disruption and how long the disruption lasts. In spite of the fact that children of older mothers tend to be older at the time of disruption, they still spend considerably longer in the single - parent status before their mother remarries or before they reach their 18th birthdays. While no extensive interpretations are given on the data presented, the findings suggest that sociologists need to examine fully the consequences of the new realities of family life for children. Tabular data and references are provided.