Parental conflict and marital disruption: Do children benefit when high-conflict marriages are dissolved?

A million children experience divorce each year and some policymakers argue for policies that would make it more difficult for parents to divorce. How ever; being exposed to a high degree of marital conflict has been shown to place children at risk for a variety of problems. Using mother-child data f rom the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) and a prospective desi gn, this research explores two questions: Do the effects of marital disrupt ion on child well-being vary for children whose parents leave high-conflict marriages versus low-conflict marriages How do children fare when their hi gh-conflict parents remain together? We find that separation and divorce ar e associated with increases in behavior problems in children, regardless of the level of conflict between parents, However in marriages that do not br eak up, high levels of marital conflict are associated with even greater in creases in children's behavior problems.