Parental divorce and outcomes for children: Evidence and interpretation

Using longitudinal data from the UK National Child Development Study (NCDS) (1958 Birth Cohort), we examine the association, net of pre-disruption bac kground factors, between the experience of family disruption between ages 7 and 16 and later experience of a range of outcomes usually considered adve rse: early school leaving, leaving home early, teenage first partnership, e arly entry into parenthood, and extra-marital fertility. Logistic regressio n analyses indicate that some-df these outcomes are more frequent among the children of disrupted families, and that girls seem to be at higher risk t han boys. Nevertheless, children of disrupted families are not distinctive: except for leaving school at the minimum age, characteristic of a majority of all family types in this cohort, all of the outcomes examined here are experienced by a minority of children in all family groups. Furthermore, th e associations observed may not be interpreted as indicating that family di sruption causes a greater risk of the outcomes studied. The NCDS, though la rge and rich in detail compared with many other data sources, is neverthele ss incomplete in crucial respects, and so many key alternative hypotheses c annot be tested. As a result, a selective origin to the findings cannot be ruled out. Causal inference needs to proceed with particular care in this a rea.