Parental divorces during childhood and adolescence affect children. It is one of the events that has the greatest impact on them due to its uncertainty, the economic precariousness that it entails, the rupture of routine and the reduction of time dedicated to children, among others. This has an impact on their studies, as numerous studies have shown. But until when? The answer is long term. In fact, children of divorced parents are less likely to have a college degree than those whose parents have not separated.
This is indicated by the research Parental divorce and long-term educational achievement of children in Spain: heterogeneity according to parental education carried out by Manuel Mejias-Leiva and Almudena Moreno Mínguez, from the Department of Sociology at the University of Valladolid , and published in the Spanish Journal of Sociological Research, which reveals, however, that it does not affect everyone equally.
The results of their work show “a negative association between parental divorce and the probability of children obtaining a university degree, this penalty being greater when divorce occurs between 0-5 and 12-16 years of age.”
Because? The authors believe that, on the one hand, the experience of separation during early childhood (0-5 years) can have adverse effects, “since fundamental emotional, social and cognitive developments occur during this period,” the article states.
On the other hand, they remember that the main gap in educational results occurs in the transition from primary to secondary education, “a stage where educational demands increase, so a disruptive event in the life of an adolescent, such as Parental divorce “may be a relevant factor in children's transition to post-compulsory education,” the researchers indicate.
Furthermore, their work has shown that the penalty of separation is greater for children of parents with high socioeconomic status. This is explained, they point out, because after separation the children of wealthy families lose some of the resources that contribute to their better socioeconomic results. It must be clarified, however, that despite this penalty, children of parents with a high level of education continue to be better positioned compared to their counterparts with a low socioeconomic level.
