The Consequences of Divorce for Adults and Children

TLDR

People vary greatly in their reactions to divorce. The review seeks to answer five questions about how divorce affects well‑being, whether differences stem from divorce or selection, the persistence of effects, mediating factors, and moderating protective factors. The authors employ a divorce‑stress‑adjustment perspective to synthesize and organize empirical literature on divorce consequences. Research indicates that divorce can cause significant turmoil, benefiting some, temporarily harming others, and driving others onto a potentially irreversible downward trajectory.

Abstract

I use a divorce‐stress‐adjustment perspective to summarize and organize the empirical literature on the consequences of divorce for adults and children. My review draws on research in the 1990s to answer five questions: How do individuals from married and divorced families differ in well‐being? Are these differences due to divorce or to selection? Do these differences reflect a temporary crisis to which most people gradually adapt or stable life strains that persist more or less indefinitely? What factors mediate the effects of divorce on individual adjustment? And finally, what are the moderators (protective factors) that account for individual variability in adjustment to divorce? In general, the accumulated research suggests that marital dissolution has the potential to create considerable turmoil in people's lives. But people vary greatly in their reactions. Divorce benefits some individuals, leads others to experience temporary decrements in well‐being, and forces others on a downward trajectory from which they might never recover fully. Understanding the contingencies under which divorce leads to these diverse outcomes is a priority for future research.