Amato, P. R., & Sobolewski, J. M. (2001). The effects of divorce and marital discord on adult children's psychological well-being. American Sociological Review, 900-921.
Purpose: This study attempt to explain parental divorce and marital discord while growing up and children’s psychological distress in adulthood. Three pathways are evaluated through which family disruption and discord may affect offspring’s well-being: children’s socioeconomic attainment, children’s marital and relationship stability and the quality of children’s relations with parents.
Methods: The analysis was based on a 17-year longitudinal study titled Marital Instability over the Life Course. The target population comprised of all married individuals in households in the United States with a telephone, both spouses present, and both spouses 55 years of age or less. Only 78 percent of the participants gave complete interviews. A sample of children (offspring’s of the main respondents) was included as part of the 1992 and 1997 waves of data collection. One thousand and seventy one respondents (parents) had …show more content…
They also treated mother-child and father-child relationships as latent variables with two observed indicators reflection parents’ and children’s reports. All of the coefficients in the model are statistically significant at p <.05. The results reveals that latent mother-child and father-child relationship variables are positively correlated, suggesting that children who had a positive (or negative) relationship with one parent also tends to have a positive (or negative) relationship with the other parent. Each latent relationship variable is positively correlated with the latent psychological well-being variable, indicating that the quality of ties with parents is bound up with the offspring’s well-being in
Purpose: This study attempt to explain parental divorce and marital discord while growing up and children’s psychological distress in adulthood. Three pathways are evaluated through which family disruption and discord may affect offspring’s well-being: children’s socioeconomic attainment, children’s marital and relationship stability and the quality of children’s relations with parents.
Methods: The analysis was based on a 17-year longitudinal study titled Marital Instability over the Life Course. The target population comprised of all married individuals in households in the United States with a telephone, both spouses present, and both spouses 55 years of age or less. Only 78 percent of the participants gave complete interviews. A sample of children (offspring’s of the main respondents) was included as part of the 1992 and 1997 waves of data collection. One thousand and seventy one respondents (parents) had …show more content…
They also treated mother-child and father-child relationships as latent variables with two observed indicators reflection parents’ and children’s reports. All of the coefficients in the model are statistically significant at p <.05. The results reveals that latent mother-child and father-child relationship variables are positively correlated, suggesting that children who had a positive (or negative) relationship with one parent also tends to have a positive (or negative) relationship with the other parent. Each latent relationship variable is positively correlated with the latent psychological well-being variable, indicating that the quality of ties with parents is bound up with the offspring’s well-being in