Effect of Divorce on Children, Article Critique Example

Introduction

Divorce and the effect is brings in the behavior of the children present a very crucial issue that various researchers have tried to discuss. For further understanding of the topic, we study Li, Jui-Chung Allen’s article entitled: For the Sake of the Kids: Divorce and Children’s Behavior Problems. The study sought to find out whether parents should delay or all the same avoid their divorce for the children’s sake. The study examined the average treatment effects of parental divorce, and the behavioral problems of children of divorce. The two variables considered were:

1) Age of children at the divorce of parents

2) Duration of the divorce

Study data obtained from the 1979 survey of Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The unique data, with its long arrays presenting repeated measurements enabled estimation of the fixed-effects and the first-differencing models. Thus, the study induced the following results (Li, 2006):

(1) Divorce contributes slightly in the decrease of the children’s emotional wellbeing

(2) Delaying a divorce substantially decreases the emotional wellbeing of children

(3) Parental divorce has little lasting effects on children, with little or rather no sign of recovery

The study had difficulties in interpretation of results, as there was a substantial difference between the conventional OLS regressions and the fixed-effects. This resulted into biasness; however, first-differencing models eliminated the biasness arising due to unobserved heterogeneity. In conclusion, the findings of the survey suggest that parents should avoid divorce if possible. If at all there should be a divorce, it should occur earlier enough, when kids are still tender (Li, 2006). If done later, when kids grow up, then there exists indirect evidence that the income and residential changes contributes to a non-recovery trauma to the children after divorce.

References

Li, Jui-Chung Allen. (2006) For the Sake of the Kids: Divorce and Children’s Behavior Problems. Conference Papers — American Sociological Association, 2006 Annual Meeting, Montreal, p1, 24p.