Is it Time to Admit That Divorce Hurts Kids Big Time?

Intellectual Takeout ^ | July 29, 2025 | Walker Larson

[DoodleBob]

In May of this year, the Institute of Family Studies reported on groundbreaking research about the effects of divorce on children and families.

The short version? It’s not good. But that shouldn’t surprise those of us who believe there’s a reason that marriage is among the oldest human institutions.

The study by Andrew Johnston, Maggie Jones, and Nolan Pope used tax records for more than 5 million children born between 1988-1993 to study the long-term effects of divorce, including its affects on income, teen birth rates, incarceration, child mortality, and college residency. Intentionally tracking sibling groups, the study compared the way divorce can affect different members of the same family and different aged children. As Grant Bailey explained in his write-up on the study, “Far from being a mere change in legal status, Johnston, Jones, and Pope demonstrate that divorce has a tangible negative impact on factors relevant to child outcomes.”

Let’s start with the economic effects of divorce, which can be devastating for a family. Prior to divorce, the average income for families in the study was between $90,000 and $100,000. Yet average household income plummeted to $42,000 after divorce. These incomes usually rise again, but generally never reach their pre-divorce levels.

Unsurprisingly considering the economic turmoil involved with divorce, the study found that parents must work more afterwards, with fathers working 16% more hours per week and mothers working 8% more. One of the parents, at least, will also need to find a new home post-divorce, thus bringing more instability to the children. Thirty-five percent of children change addresses in the year of the divorce, often moving to a lower-quality neighborhood, due, again, to the decline in family income.

The economic effects of divorce are long-lasting. The study further found that children who experience divorce in early childhood will earn 9% less at age 25 than the average earnings for that age, and the gap grows to 13% at age 27.

But financial woes aren’t the only problem tangled up with divorce. Teen birth rates balloon for children whose parents divorced: prior to divorce, the number of teen girls giving birth hovers around 7 per 1,000. After divorce, the number grows to 13 per 1,000. Even more shocking, in the aftermath of divorce, child mortality rises from 10 to 15 deaths per 100,000 children annually.

Summarizing these findings, the authors of the study comment:

These results reveal substantial effects of divorce on children’s outcomes. The absence of pre-trends in both outcomes supports a causal interpretation. The magnitude of the effects—a 35 to 55 percent increase in mortality and up to a 63 percent increase in teen births—underscores how divorce can dramatically reshape children’s outcomes, potentially through changes in resources, supervision, and family dynamics.

Defenders of divorce once argued that child-divorce outcome research isn’t that accurate because children from such families are different than children from families that remain intact. Divorce is a symptom of other underlying issues, they said, not a cause. But by tracking sibling groups and looking at outcomes for children within the same family – and how they differ based on the child’s age – this new study challenges that line of thinking, lending credence to the idea that the divorce itself is the root of many of the negative outcomes children experience in the ensuing years.

None of these negative statistical outcomes are surprising. It would be far more shocking to learn that divorce doesn’t cause significant and long-term damage to the life of a child.

Divorce is a tragedy that shatters a child’s world. According to the nonprofit Family Means, it’s common for children of a divorcing couple to feel anger, confusion, guilt and anxiety because of the divorce. They may manifest a decline in academic performance and loss of interest in social activities. And they’re more likely to engage in destructive behavior, including crime and drug use. These children are also more likely to divorce in their own marriages, losing faith in the institution of marriage completely, thus perpetuating a tragic cycle.

But children aren’t doomed to follow their parents’ footsteps. Resilient children can overcome the hurdles cast their way by the divorce of their parents, and they can go on to have stable, intact families of their own one day. But none of that means we, as a society, should take lightly the immense trauma we’re putting children through via divorce and the ways it undercuts their own future flourishing.

[DoodleBob]

The progressive era and the advent of socialism brought on by the Depression got that started. Marriage became disposable…it is reversible, it can be undone. It’s caustic to women, and quoth Marx and Engels, “(t)he bourgeois sees his wife as a mere instrument of production. He hears that the instruments of production are to be exploited in common, and, naturally, can come to no other conclusion than that the lot of being common to all will likewise fall to the women.”

Marriage isn’t considered an irreversible bond in our culture anymore. The Commandments are no longer binding. Going to hell for sex outside of marriage is a figment of the imagination. God will forgive you; actually God is a woman…

We need to get people into a pre-1934 marriage mindset. From there, children can grow up in a home that isn’t lead by hypocrites, where religion is seen as VITAL.

[CondoleezzaProtege]

Yes it would do well for the CHURCH - every denomination - to address it.

[CondoleezzaProtege]

Because it involves heterosexual couples, divorce almost gets a free pass by some conservatives and conservative Christians…

When in reality, the *other* sexuality struggles conservatives are all too ready to highlight and call out instead - can often be traced directly to (heterosexual) divorce and familial brokenness. Spiritual and religious abuse of power as well. 😕

[Secret Agent Man]

Marrige reform is needed. Government needs to stop treating it as a revenue maker. Govt makes over 60 billion a year off divorce. Modern marriage is also the way the state controls its people. Marriage needs to be something the state no longer is involved in, as the state has corrupted it and turned it into both a control mechanism and a govt money making industry.

[irishjuggler]

Indeed. I know people in their 40s who are still angry and bitter about parents’ divorces that happened 25+ years ago.

[Secret Agent Man]

Chruches are not serious abkut marriage. They dont vet people being married. They dont give a realistic picture of what the reality of marriage is. They dont tell men the reality and they dont explain to the women what their responsibilities are and whats expected of them.

Its probably too late to get it corrected before Christ returns.

[vpintheak]

Selfish people, especially women, don’t give a rats behind. They chase after the lies that they’re somehow going to be happier. Fools.
I am a happily married man. The Mrs is a good woman. But I’ve had friends that have been hurt by delusional women.

[Secret Agent Man]

When people dont have skills to deal with relationships properly, thats what happens when life stresses occur.

Fact is people tend to mimic their parents, its what they see and hear, and usually see and hear again and again. A small number see and decide to reject whzt their parents do because they see it doesnt work and they dont want to be like that - but thats not the majority. Most do because its whzt they learned and think is normal. You get two screamers and you’ll eventually get divorce. You get a cheater in there because mom and/or dad did it, and you get divorce. You get a selfish gaslighter you get divorce. You get a marriage of convenience, or because a woman wants to stop working, or just want a baby because time is running out and they need a donor, you get a divorce.

[sushiman]

My mother should have divorced my father a long , long time before she finally did once we were all grown up and married . She put up with far too much from the jerk and we kids ( 6 in all ) were all scarred to various degrees by his treatment of my Ma , his alcoholism and verbal abuse .

[Varsity Flight]

Watch your hair Sampson👀, watch carefully. 📖🕸️👀

[Varsity Flight]

✅📌👀

[Carry_Okie]

When divorce took off and marriage took a simultaneous dive is with the release of the pill.

[goodnesswins]

Guess I could be an expert on this...between my 2 parents there were 8 spouses...Yes, divorce hurts children, but so do parents who have emotional and mental problems.

[DennisR]

“The Case against Divorce” by Diane Medved is an excellent treatise on this issue.

[toast]

Yes. Some marriages are more damaging than divorce.

[Bethaneidh]

Kids hate Dads who are mean or disloyal to Mama. And they always know.

[AlaskaErik]

When I was 14 I was absolutely ecstatic when my parents announced they were getting a divorce. By then my mother and I were mortal enemies and I just wanted her out of my life. Life was so much better once she moved out.

[metmom]

No different than men who don’t give a rats behind.

It’s not an affliction that is specific to one sex.

Some men chase the lie that they be happier in an affair and so destroy their marriages, just like some women do.

Some men think women are their for their convenience and pleasure, just like some women do.

Some men are violent control freaks and put their wives in the hospital because of beating them. Women TEND TO control differently.

Both men and women need to grow up and act like responsible adults to make a marriage work. And one sex is not more guilty than the other. BOTH have lost their moorings and need to work to fix things instead of blame shifting all the time.

[metmom]

A household where the husband abuses his wife and kids is NOT a good environment to be in, and I don’t blame the wife for leaving. If he can’t control himself, that’s the only solution.

I have friends who grew up in homes like that and it definitely damages everyone involved.

[metmom]

My dad was not abusive to my mom. Never even heard him raise his voice to her. But he did something once that made her cry, which she almost never did, and I hated him for that. I was SO angry with him.

A friend recounts having his step dad beat his mom until my friend, as a teen, threatened to kill him in his sleep if he did it again.

THAT cannot be less damaging than divorce.

I am opposed to divorce, especially the divorce culture mentality we live in, but for a woman and children’s own safety, sometimes it is necessary.