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Social economic effects of divorce on children
Social economic effects of divorce on children
Divorces impact on children research for literature review
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The Effects of Children on Marital Satisfaction
Parenthood is a significant event in a couple’s life marked by many changes that can affect marriage. Depending on how couples handle this new adversity could be the difference between stability and divorce for their family. That is why “For decades, there has been much debate in the marital and family literature on whether having a baby causes substantial declines in the average couple 's relationship” (Doss, Rhoades, Stanley, & Markman, 2009). Furthermore during the first 5 years of marriage is when couples go through parenthood which have been viewed as when divorce is most prominent in a relationship. In order to prepare new parents against the challenges of parenthood, it’s important to explore the effects of children on marital satisfaction.
Results from past studies are often contradictory to one another. The study by LeMasters (1957) showed that the onset of parenthood will constitute as a crisis event for families. However another research by Russell, suggest that the transition to parenthood can be both a positive and negative event (as cited in Keizer, Dykstra, & Poortman, 2010). The purpose of the study below was to see if the transition to parenthood is really associated with a decline in marital satisfaction. Unlike previous research, this one will include a few changes added in order to improve the validity of the result.
Changes include adding a controlled group (childless couples), so that changes that occur normally in a relationship as time pass won’t be attributed to the transition to parenthood (Lawrence, A. Rothman, Cobb, M. Rothman, & Bradbury, 2008). Only voluntarily childless couples were accepted for the controlled group. This is because couples without ...
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This information is very beneficial to couples because they will now be more prepared to face this inevitable problem that happens to everyone. Some limitations of this experiment is that all the subjects were from one place. A better sample subject could be obtained from picking the samples from across the countries in order to get a better representation. Also the duration of this experiment was 5 years. It is possible that marital satisfaction could improve in a longer experiment. Although this experiment helps confirm some of the questions about the transition to parenthood, many more questions arise from the result. One such question is if nonparents have more marital satisfaction than parents, why do they get divorced more than parents? In the future it would be interesting to test out the benefits of having children and comparing it to the negatives.
No one expects to divorce when they get married but nearly half of all marriages will end in divorce or separation. Divorce can be costly, with court fees and attorneys. Dr. Doherty, noted marriage scholar and therapist has determined a list of risk factors that are attributed to marital problems and divorce. The first three: Young age, less education and less income are coincidently other topics brushed upon in this paper. Impulsive decisions made by younger people to marry leads to children which leads to financial instability. Once a couple has children, they are unlikely to further their education because of lack of time. Divorce also has a negative effect on
In this book, the editor made analysis on large representative surveys on children’s family structure. She used these surveys to distinguish families that have single parents, parents who were never married, divorced or separated parents, and remarried parents. According to her study, children are less likely to finish high school or college and keep their job. Also, without fathers they will more likely become adolescent parents. Furthermore, fathers are less likely to share incomes with their children when they do not live with their children.
Thornton A. 1991. Influence of the marital history of parents on the marital and cohabitation experiences of children. Am. J. Sociol. 96:868 94
Divorce has grown conventional in today's society. First marriages stand a 50% chance of breaking up and second marriages stand a 67% chance of doing the same thing (issue 8 pg 146). It seems as if instead of working out problems and believing in love, people are giving up and throwing away all they worked on together for so long, thinking that their next marriage will be much different. By doing this they are hurting not only themselves but also their children and could cause them to have negative side effects later on into their adult lives according to clinical psychologist Judith S. Wallerstein. Erikson's theory of personality development can help calculate which and how stages are affected when parents get divorce. Stages 3, 4, 5 and 6 seem to be the most affected by the divorce because the main conflicts the child is confronting at the time are necessary to go through them calmly for a healthy development.
In older times, women were responsible for the entire household work. But today, the scenario has completely changed. Now men and women are equally accountable for the household work. Even though the responsibilities have been shared, yet the divorce rate is increasing steadily. Today’s generation couples divorce due to several reasons. This includes fighting and anger between the couples or love for each other has changed. Other reason may be parent fall in love with someone else. Sometimes due to serious problem such as drinking, gambling, and spouse abuse. Financial issues or sharing duties can also be major reason for divorce. Each and every reasons of divorce affect the children’s life differently. In spite of all these reasons, majority of parents don’t care, what will be the affects of divorce on children’s life. How these innocent children handle and adapt to the new environment. Divorce can have both positive and negative affect on children’s life.
Since the dawn of civilised society, children have suffered from losing one or both of their parents. “Half of all American children will witness the breakup of a parent’s marriage” (Bilotta, 1). Children being brought out in single house household are more likely to become depressed and have problems with their peers. In addition “Family Timeline” by ProQuest, in 1920 points out that “The divorce rate is approximately eight per 1,000 marriages” and today that rate has skyrocketed to 50% (Proquest,1). Proquest clearly rationalizes why the divorce rate has risen. “As more women become educated and join the workforce divorce becomes economically possible for them” (Proquest, 2). Marriages have often been a necessity for
Sobolewski, Juliana M., and Paul R. Amato. 2007. "Parents' Discord and Divorce, Parent-Child Relationships and Subjective Well-Being in Early Adulthood: Is Feeling Close to Two Parents Always Better than Feeling Close to One?." Social Forces 85, no. 3: 1105-1124. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed March 8, 2011).
Lavner, J. A., & Bradbury, T. N. (2012). Why do even satisfied newlyweds eventually go on to divorce?. Journal Of Family Psychology, 26(1), 1-10. doi:10.1037/a0025966
Girgis, George, & Anderson (2011) define marriage as the union of a man and a woman who make a permanent and exclusive commitment to each other of the type that is naturally (inherently) fulfilled by bearing and rearing children together. These marriages are intended to last eternity and are partially accomplished by raising children together, yet four of every ten marriages lead to divorce and of these divorces, 35% involve children (Ambert, 2009). Children tend to blame themselves for the divorce and are usually caught in the crossfire. These divorces lead to both stress and depression for children and without a strong sense of family, children will have a huge disadvantage over children with a stable healthy family (Arreola, Hartounian, Kurges, Maultasch, & Retana, 2013). Without the ability to cope with the stress of a divorce, children can be effected in multiple ways including a change in mentality, unacceptable behavioural traits and both short and long term emotional factors that will ultimately lead to a critical issue in child development.
Umberson, D., Pudrovska, T., & Reczek, C. (2010). Parenthood, childlessness, and wellbeing: A life course perspective. Journal of Marriage and Family, 72, 612-629. doi:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2010.00721.x
The stages of the family life-cycle schema of family development is based on the information drawn from Barnhill and Longo (1978), Becvar and Becvar (1999), Carter and McGoldrick (1980), and of Duvall (1962). It tells us of the stages in the family life cycle and the developmental issues related to each stage. It consists of the following nine stages: Stage 1) Unattached adult; Stage 2) Newly married adults; Stage 3) Childbearing adults; Stage 4) Pre-school age child; Stage 5) School-age child; Stage 6) Teenage child; Stage 7) Launching centre; Stage 8) Middle-aged adults; Stage 9) Retired adults. It is important to note that between each stage there is a transitional period where each family member is required to change. Each member in each life-cycle stage has certain developmental tasks to fulfill for a healthy family structure to
I believe that by continuing research on marital stability and satisfaction many more questions will be answeres. Many more ways in which satisfaction is obtained will be uncovered as well. I know that there will never be an equation for marital satisfaction, but hopefully people will realize that communication is the key factor to having positive relationships. And by using good communication, satisfaction in those relationships will follow.
Marriage Counseling or “Couple Therapy” is a term that is used to describe a type of counseling a couple attends in order to help them overcome issues in their relationships to avoid separation or divorce. Today, people view divorce as something that occurs commonly between married couples who have difficulty maintaining a relationship with their spouse. For the past thirty years, the phrase: “fifty percent of marriages end in divorce”, seems to have been ingrained into people’s mentality because it has become extremely common to come across individuals who have either been through one or more divorces. Divorce or separation not only affects the couples, but also their children. Having a strong family plays a major part in the lives of children and is crucial for their mental well-being. A report done by a team of senior academics for DailyMail UK found that “the damage caused to a child by divorce continues to blight his or her life as far as old age” and that “parental separation in childhood was consistently associated with psychological distress in adulthood during people’s early thirties”. Not only does the report show that children are affected by the effects of divorced but, the report also suggests that as divorce and separation continues to grow more common in society, the effects it has on the mental health of children does not reduce.
Same-sex couples can become parents through means of former relationships, co-parenting, surrogacy, adoption, and donor insemination, although major legal discrimination continues to challenge this process for families. The difficulty faced by many of these couples to have children oftentimes results in even more nurturing environments. This variance in route to parenthood can make same-sex couples that are having children more motivated to be doing so. “Planned families reflect the desire of sexual minorities to have children outside of heteronormative circumstances” (Moore 2013:495). Non-heterosexual parents on average have stronger relationships with their children th...
Popenoe, David. A. "Cohabitation, Marriage, And Child Wellbeing: A Cross-National Perspective. " Society 46.5 (2009): 429-436.