Divorce: Its Effects on Children

Paper Summary:

The paper discusses the conventional wisdom of the 1960s and 1970s that divorce did not harm children and families were better off after a divorce of unhappily married parents. The paper examines the research and illustrates how divorce harms children in the short-term and long-term. The paper reveals that children of divorced parents typically suffer developmentally, emotionally, educationally, financially, have difficulties forming and sustaining intimate relationships of their own and are more prone to crime. The paper therefore concludes that the conventional wisdom of the 1960s has turned out to have been empirically untrue.

From the Paper:

"In the 1960s and 1970s; with the 'Sexual Revolution' having now been made possible by the first-ever widespread use of birth control pills by young women; and with 'No Fault Divorce' having becoming law in the pioneering state of California in 1969, the divorce rate itself began to slowly rise to the historic height it reached at the end of the 20th century (Wallerstein 1989). "In 1950 for every hundred children born, that year, 12 entered a broken family --- four were born out of wedlock and eight suffered the divorce of their parents. By the year 2000 that number had risen five fold and for every 100 children born 60 entered a broken family: 33 born out of wedlock and 27 suffering the divorce of their parents (Fagan May 13, 2004). Clearly then, divorce does harm children, in ways that are not commonly realized but that also arguably take a severe toll on our entire, increasingly divorce-prone society."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Fagan, P.F. (May 14, 2004). The social scientific data on the impact of marriage and divorce on children. The Heritage Foundation. http://www.heritage.org/Research/Family/tst051304a.cfm.
• Fagan, P.F., & Rector, R. (2007). The effects of divorce on America. Backgrounder: The Heritage Foundation, No. 1378. http:www.elsevier. com/retrieve/pii/S0194659504000061.html.
• Gest, T. (November 1983) Divorce: How the game is played now. U.S. News and World Report, 21. 39-42.
• Gilman, S., et al. (May 2003). Family disruption in childhood and risk of adult Depression. American Journal of Psychiatry (160). 939-946 14 Dec 2007http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/160/5/939.html.
• Johnson, S. (March 30, 1979). No-fault divorce: 10 years later, some virtues, some flaws. New York Times. A22.

More papers on Divorce: Its Effects on Children:

• Term Paper # 4836 : "Divorce: Negative Effects on Children, Society, and the Couple"
• Research Paper # 145299 : "Divorce and its Effect on Children"
• Research Paper # 144137 : "The Effects of Divorce on Children"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: