High-income parents' separation found to boost children's behavior problems

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-09/sfri-psf090314.php

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 10-Sep-2014

Contact: Hannah Klein
Society for Research in Child Development
Parents' separation found to boost children's behavior problems, but only in high-income families

Before they reach young adulthood, most children in the United States will experience their parents separating, divorcing, finding another partner, or getting remarried.

Research tells us that children have more behavior problems (such as aggression and defiance) when families change structure. Now a new study has found that behavior problems in children increased in families in which parents separated only in higher-income families, and that children's age also played a part in their likelihood of having behavior problems.

The study, by researchers at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, appears in the journal Child Development.

The study also found that moving from a single-parent family into a stepparent family improved children's behavior in higher-income families but not in lower-income families.

"Our findings suggest that family changes affect children's behavior in higher-income families more than children's behavior in lower-income families—for better and for worse," notes Rebecca M. Ryan, assistant professor of psychology at Georgetown University, who led the study.

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The study also compared the effects of parents' separation and remarriage or repartnering on children's behavior problems when children were 5 years old or younger versus when they were 6 to 12 years old.

While changes in family structure affected the behavior of children from high-income families, they didn't affect the behavior of children in low-income families. This may be because families with few economic resources at the outset may not experience as dramatic a change in economic circumstance when parents separate as those with greater initial resources, the researchers suggest.

Moreover, single-parent and blended families occur more often among lower-income families; in this context, single-parent and repartnered families may be perceived differently.

For children from high-income families, the researchers found that the effects of family change varied by age. Parents' separation increased the likelihood that children would have behavior problems only if the separation took place when the children were 5 or younger. However, moving into a stepparent family benefited children's behavior only when it occurred after age 6.

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