News

Tuesday September 19, 2000


STUDY DETAILS HOW DIVORCE HARMS CHILDREN

BEKERLEY, California, Sept 19 (LSN.ca) – A new study reveals divorce has a major negative impact on the lives of the children, especially as those children become adults. The study is published in a book by Judith Wallerstein, a senior lecturer emerita at the University of California-Berkeley, Julia Lewis, a professor of psychology at San Francisco State University, and Sandra Blakeslee, a science writer for the New York Times. “The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: a 25-Year Landmark Study,” published by Hyperion of New York, is based on a study of about 100 San Francisco Bay-area children that began in 1971, and is believed to be the first research of its kind to follow the children of divorce into adulthood.

The findings note that children of divorced parents are:
– more likely to abuse drugs
– more likely to seek therapy
– 40 per cent more likely to avoid marriage themselves
– twice as likely to see their marriages fail if they do marry

Reuters reports that the study compared the group from divorced parents to a comparable group from intact families and concluded that divorce has a profound and lasting impact on the emotional lives of children, which is felt most acutely in their own adult relationships.

For more see the Reuters report at:
https://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000905/sc/life_divorce_dc_1.html