Parental divorce, life-course disruption, and adult depression

We examine the association between adult depression and childhood parental divorce, and the explanations for this association, using a representative national sample of 2,592 adults interviewed by telephone in 1995. Parental divorce may disrupt the life course, with lifelong consequences for adult w ell-being in two ways: lowered socioeconomic status and problems in interpe rsonal relationships. Compared with individuals who grew up with both paren ts, adult children of divorce have lower levels of education, occupational status, and income, higher levels of economic hardships (both current and p ast), more often marry young, divorce and remarry several times, find thems elves in unhappy relationships, and mistrust people in general. However the y do not have lower levels of social support. These associations hold when we adjust for sex, minority status, age, parental death, and parental educa tion. The disadvantaged socioeconomic and interpersonal statuses link paren tal divorce to adult depression because more education is associated with l ower levels of depression and because economic hardship, early marriages, u nhappy relationships and mistrust are associated with high levels of depres sion. There are no direct intrapsychic effects of parental divorce on adult depression. Low socioeconomic status and problems in interpersonal relatio nships mediate all of the association.