Children of Divorce Face Lower Incomes, Higher Rates of Teen Pregnancy and Incarceration, Study Reveals
A new study has found that children in the U.S. whose parents divorce when they are age five or younger face serious long-term consequences that follow them into adulthood.
These children are more likely to earn less money, become teen parents, be incarcerated, or even die prematurely compared to peers whose parents remain married during their early years.
Conducted by economists from the University of California, Merced, the U.S. Census Bureau, and the University of Maryland, the study highlights how divorce creates a series of cascading effects on family life, not just a legal separation.
After a divorce, family income often drops significantly as it must now support two separate households. Families tend to relocate to lower-income neighborhoods with fewer opportunities, and children frequently lose close contact with the non-custodial parent, either due to distance or the added workload required to support two households.
The researchers estimate that these three factors, reduced financial resources, neighborhood downgrades, and diminished parental involvement, account for between 25% and 60% of the negative effects seen in children of divorce.
They argue that divorce is not a single event but a “bundle of treatments,” each of which may influence a child’s long-term development.
According to the data, children whose parents divorced when they were age five or younger earned about 13% less by the age of 27 than their peers from intact families.
The risk of teen pregnancy rose if the divorce happened before the child turned 15, although that risk faded by age 20.
Similarly, the increased likelihood of incarceration also diminished with time. Interestingly, the study found no significant impact on whether a child of divorce was likely to marry by age 25. The effects were consistent across different demographic groups.
One of the study’s major strengths is its data depth. By linking federal tax records, Social Security information, and Census Bureau data, the researchers could track the lives of all U.S.-born children between 1988 and 1993.
They even compared siblings within the same family who experienced divorce at different stages of childhood, allowing for unusually precise conclusions.
While the study doesn’t measure emotional fallout, many adults who lived through parental divorce report long-lasting psychological effects. For example, Brandon Hellan, 54, whose parents divorced when he was in his early 20s, said the experience left him hesitant to commit to relationships well into his 30s. He described it as feeling like a betrayal that made him treat relationships as temporary.
Despite these findings, some scholars and advocates caution against interpreting divorce as universally harmful. Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland not connected to the study, pointed out that remaining in an unhappy or high-conflict marriage can also damage children.
“Probably nobody can tell better than the parents facing the conditions of the marriage and the opportunity for divorce,” he said. “Parents are aware divorce may have harmful consequences for their children, and make difficult judgments about what is in their own best interest, as well as the interest of their children.”
While previous research on divorce’s effects has often been inconclusive due to limited data, this new study offers some of the strongest evidence to date about how early childhood experiences of divorce can shape adult outcomes.
Still, as Cohen emphasized, the real-life decisions families face are complex, and the impact of divorce can vary widely depending on individual circumstances.
