Black Children's Adjustment to their Parents' Marital Disruption: An Examination of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY).

Abstract

This study employed data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) to examine Black children’s response to parental marital disruption over a four-year inter-survey period. Using a homogeneous sample of Black children, I examined 1) whether marital disruption in Black families has the same presumed adverse effects reported in the general literature, 2) whether family circumstances prior to the marital disruption modify the association between marital disruption and children’s adjustment, and finally, 3) whether the effect of marital disruption varies by the particular child outcome under investigation. Two outcome domains were assessed—Behavioral Problem (BPI; externalizing and internalizing behaviors) and Achievement (PIAT; Mathematics and Reading). A sample of 405 children aged 4-11 were examined; however, a separate sub-sample of children aged 5-11 from this group was assessed on the PIAT subtests. Children’s adjustment was assessed at Time 1, prior to divorce/separation, and later at Time 2, after the marriage ended. To investigate potential variability in children’s response to parental divorce/separation, several factors preceding the actual divorce/separation were assessed, namely, parental conflict, parent-child relationship, poverty status, neighborhood problem, maternal depressive symptoms, mastery, education and employment. Results indicated pre-disruption group differences among youth in subsequently disrupted and continuously married households. These pre-separation/divorce differences were found for both samples on measures of parent-child relationship, poverty, neighborhood problem, maternal depressive symptoms, and maternal education, with relatively small effect sizes. Marital disruption was associated with a significant effect for one of the four outcome variables of interest (i.e., reading), after accounting for several child and family characteristics. Moderation analyses examined the interaction between pre-disruption factors and marital disruption. Results revealed significant interaction effects of parent-child relationship, maternal depressive symptoms, and poverty status for behavior problems, and parental conflict for achievement. Overall the findings suggest that the scope of the effect of marital disruption is limited in the present sample of Black children, because a significant effect was found for only one of the four outcomes assessed. In addition, several of the pre-disruption factors predicted differential outcomes among the children and thereby indicate the need for future research to explain the heterogeneity of divorce/separation outcomes.