On Instagram, a teenager messaged me, “What is the effect of divorce on children?” She was working on a school project.
Here is my reply:
Hi Marcella (not her real name),
Congratulations! You are researching one of the most popular topics in family studies. For the past 50 years, researchers have been asking the same question you are. There are many studies on this topic, but many are published in journals and books rather than online, making them a bit hard to find.
Your question is: “What is the effect of divorce on children?”
The answer is interesting because researchers have found that it depends on how troubled the marriage is. It turns out that abuse is worse for children than divorce.
Whenever we look at divorce and its effect on kids, we must also ask a second question:
“Are violence, emotional abuse, threats, sexual immorality and abuse, criminal behavior, or having a substance-addicted parent who squanders the rent money on drugs and alcohol WORSE for kids than divorce?”
Researchers have found that in cases where there is a pattern of such destructive behaviors, divorce is a “net benefit” to the children. In other words, the harm caused by a parent exhibiting serious destructive behaviors is far worse for the kids than the harm caused by divorce — sometimes up to ten times worse.
Can you think of a situation where a parent was so cruel, selfish, or destructive to their spouse or children that you wondered why their spouse didn’t divorce them?
Let me send you to quotes from real scientists so they can speak for themselves. I’ve collected quotes and included links to their research in my blog posts so you can verify them. (I’ll share my perspective at the bottom.)
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Quotes from top researchers: Wallerstein, Hetherington, Amato, Cherlin, Waite, Hawkins, Booth, McLanahan, Gallagher, etc. https://lifesavingdivorce.com/wallerstein
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Is abuse worse for kids than divorce? https://lifesavingdivorce.com/abuse-and-kids
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Being in the same home 24/7 with a parent exhibiting 3 of the 7 antisocial character traits is worse than divorce for children. https://lifesavingdivorce.com/jaffee
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Results of a new May 2025 study (a working paper) on divorce and kids, titled Divorce, Family Arrangements, and Children’s Adult Outcomes by Andrew C. Johnston, Maggie R. Jones, and Nolan G. Pope: https://www.census.gov/library/working-papers/2025/adrm/CES-WP-25-28.html. Very few people have actually read this study, but I have, and I created a graph based on its data. Here’s a 90-second summary video of the research: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1408006796918253
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5. 12 facts that most people don’t know about the good side of life-saving divorces https://lifesavingdivorce.com/12facts/
My view:
If the marriage is good, divorce is bad for kids.
If the marriage is very bad, divorce is good for kids.
Do you see what I mean? Divorce can be good for kids if it rescues them from a very toxic situation.
Sincerely, Gretchen Baskerville
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