Consequences of Divorce

A. Introduction
The divorce rate continues to increase from year to year. While many studies are conducted on the reasons for divorce, fewer focus on the consequences that occur after. Although each case comes with its own set of circumstances, I am going to focus on two articles that look at some of the consequences that occur after a divorce. The first will focus on the adult children of divorced couples while the second takes an in depth look at how African American women fair following divorce.
B. Discussion (article 1)
In the article, Feeling Caught Between Parents, the author evaluates how adult children have been affected by their parents’ relationships while growing up. He also compares the feelings of adult children of divorced parents with adult children of parents who continued in a high-conflict marriage. The study focuses on children feeling caught between the two parents in both circumstances.
The target population included all married individuals in the United States with a telephone, both spouses present, and both spouses being no older than 55 years of age in 1980. To obtain the sample, telephone interviewers used a random digit dialing to select households then a second random procedure to select either the husband or the wife. The final sample of parents consisted of 2,033 married individuals. These individuals were interviewed again in 1983 (78%), 1988 (66%), and 1992 (58%). Of these parents, 87% with eligible children provided names and telephone numbers for the children. If parents had more than 1 eligible child, a random procedure was used to select which child to include. Offspring were interviewed first in 1992 and again in 1997. A total of 691 offspring were interviewed at least once. The analysis was restricted to children who were 19 years of age or younger in 1980 when the parents were first interviewed.
The first hypothesis was that parental divorce has a direct effect on children feeling caught between parents and that this feeling has a direct effect on subjective well-being and relationships with parents. Further more it was hypothesized that children who grew up in high conflict, two-parent families also had increased feelings of being caught between parents. The independent variables were divorce and high-conflict marriages. The dependent variables for the study included marital conflict; feeling caught between parents, parent-child relationships, and a variety of post divorce variables.
The findings of this study were as follows: Conflict between parents who remain married contributes to children’s feeling of being caught in the middle. These feelings were associated with lower subjective well-being and a poor quality relationship with mothers and fathers. Parental divorce also showed a direct effect on children feeling caught between parents; however, this feeling appeared to fade in the years following the divorce. Finally, it was found that adult children with conflicted parents who do not divorce are more likely than adult children with divorced parents to feel caught in the middle. The results of these findings support the idea that a negative relationship between parents has a direct negative effect on children. This occurs regardless of whether the parents continue in the marriage or divorce. The only difference being that children of parents who continue in a conflicted marriage feel torn between the parents for a longer period possibly due to being exposed to the conflict for a longer period and not being able to escape it, while the feelings appeared to fade over time for children of divorced parents.
Discussion (article 2) It is been shown that divorce affects people in different areas of their life. In this article, the author shifts his focus to the experiences of a specific culture, working class African American women. He examines how African American women adjust economically and socially after divorce and if discrimination plays a part in this adjustment. This was a qualitative study that focused only on the divorce experiences of working class African American women. The sample population was African American women who were members of District council 37 labor union in New York City. It was not specific in age and included a population of women 21 to 65 years of age. All of the women had accepted social work services during their divorce. The responses of 30 women were analyzed to look at the pre-divorce, divorce, and post divorce experiences of African American women. The women volunteered to be interviewed face to face by a social worker where they had received services. The one hour interview looked at each women’s experience and how they adapted after the divorce. Additionally, a questionnaire was used to gather demographic data along with family characteristics. This included limited information about the ex-spouses. The hypothesis of this study was that socioeconomic class and cultural factors do affect African American women’s divorce experience and how they adjust after divorce. The variables in this study included emotional, interpersonal, financial, parental, occupational, and educational functioning during the three stages of divorce, pre divorce, divorce, and post divorce. The findings of the study found that socioeconomic class and cultural factors do affect African American women’s divorce adjustment. As a result of divorce, these families also face consequences of discrimination and poverty. African American younger women faced more stresses and more financial difficulties than older women due to earning less income and receiving less child support from fathers. Although financial issues were a consequence of divorce, it did not seem that financial problems were the actual cause of the divorce in working African American women. When asked whether or not the women felt they had been discriminated against at work, only 10% felt that they had been while 23% of the women felt that their ex-spouse had suffered some type of racial discrimination at work, leading to the high unemployment rate of the ex-spouses. The greatest consequence the women encountered was financial problems, followed by feelings of low self-esteem and loneliness.
C. Evaluation (article 1) I feel that this study provided a good evaluation of how children feel caught between parents in high conflict relationships and divorce. The study was very thorough by choosing parents by random sample and then offspring by a random sample. I especially think the data was accurate because of the multi interview process. Parents in this study were initially contacted while children were still young and in the home. Children were then contacted after they had left the home and didn’t feel pressured to answer in any particular manner. I believe this gave honest and accurate data to work with. The one area I feel that could have strengthened the study was interviewing the parents post divorce. There was no data to measure the amount of conflict after the children were out of the home and how this affected the adult child’s feelings.
Evaluation (article 2) I do not feel that this was a well -conducted study. I feel that the study focused on issues that are seen as trends in African American women than on the actual experiences of these women. The subjects of this study, poverty and discrimination, are topics that affect many African American women not just those that encounter divorce. I do believe that focusing on working class women was a beneficial attempt to steer away from the stigma that African American women are in poverty due to unemployment.

References

Molina, Olga. 2000. “African American Women’s Unique Divorce Experiences.” Journal of Divorce & Remarriage 32:93-99.

Amato, Paul and Tamara Afifi. 2006. “Feeling Caught Between Parents: Adult Children’s Relations With Parents and Subjective Well-Being.” Journal of Marriage and Family 68:222-235.