American children whose parents divorce when they are age 5 or younger have reduced earnings as adults and increased chances by young adulthood of teen pregnancy, incarceration and death, according to the working paper by economists at the University of California, Merced; the U.S. Census Bureau; and the University of Maryland.
After a divorce, a household’s income typically is halved as a family splits into two households, and it struggles to recover that lost income over the ensuing decade. Families after divorce also tend to move to neighborhoods with lower incomes that offer reduced economic opportunities, and children are farther away from their non-custodial parent.
The three events — loss of financial resources, a decline in neighborhood quality and missing parental involvement because of distance or an increased workload required to make up for lost income — accounted for 25% to 60% of the impact divorce has on children’s outcomes.
The economists wrote, “These changes in family life reveal that, rather than an isolated legal shock, divorce represents a bundle of treatments — including income loss, neighborhood changes, and family restructuring — each of which might affect children’s outcomes.”
Almost a third of American children live through their parents’ divorcing before reaching adulthood.