Long-term effects of divorce on adolescent academic achievement.

Abstract

A sample of 77 children who had experienced a divorce in the family during childhood was identified in a group of 350 children who took part in a 18-year follow-up study on the Danish Prospective Perinatal Cohort. Reading and mathematics proficiency measures collected in the 11th and 12th grades were correlated with a set of eight measures derived from an intensive interview of the mothers designed to assess various potential stresses in the social/family environment. All zero-order correlations were in the expected direction indicating that stress is related to lower adolescent academic proficiency within this subsample. When controls were imposed for Socio-economic Status and Mother's educational Level, three maternal characteristics remained significant: discontentment, disorderliness and employment instability. Overall, the findings support the notion that improvement of the mother's adap-