ifstudies.org/
2026-01-05
The relationship between divorce and kids has always been a hot button in the discourse. That kids are affected by divorce is quite clear. But while the immediate effects of divorce go mostly undisputed, many doubt that divorce has a lasting impact into adulthood. Whatever discrepancies that exist between children from intact families and children with divorced parents can be explained, the argument goes, by factors other than or surrounding the divorce. It may be that bad outcomes are merely symptoms of an unhappy home, and not the divorce itself. Or it may be that divorcees are more prone to conflict for idiosyncratic or genetic reasons, which carries on to kids.
Comparing outcomes between kids from intact and divorced homes is relatively simple. The difficulty is establishing causation. To this end, researchers need a large enough sample, over a sufficient length of time, and a way to control for differences between families. A new working paper from Andrew C. Johnston, Maggie R. Jones, and Nolan G. Pope achieves this goal. Using tax records for over 5 million children born between 1988 and 1993, Johnston and his coauthors follow the lives of children whose parents divorced, measuring income, child mortality, teen birth rates, incarceration, and college residency.