Is divorce such a disaster for kids?

Philip Larkin may have written that your mum and dad f*%k you up. But what, specifically, about divorce? The British tabloids regularly run features lamenting the "devastating" consequences of divorce on the "tots". But a recent paper by Shirley Liu from the University of Miami undermines some of those assertions.

Her paper, Is My Parent’s Divorce to Blame for My Failure in Life? A Joint Model of Child Educational Attainments and Parental Divorce (PDF), finds - like other research in the field - that children of divorced parents tend to have lower educational attainments. But is this caused by parental divorce?

Using annual data on a representative sample of children and their families since childbirth until the completion of their schooling, we model child’s schooling attainments and parents’ marital dissolution as joint decision processes, where unobservables triggering divorce and affecting child development are assumed to be correlated. After accounting for both observed and unobserved characteristics, we find no evidence that the lower educational attainments is attributable to parents’ divorce per se, but rather due to unobserved factors that are correlated with divorce.

...While further research is into the mechanisms through which parents’ divorce affects child attainments is needed, our findings provide some evidence that divorce in itself does not negatively affect children’s educational outcomes. The reasons for dissolving a marriage tend to be family-specific and usually observed only by the parties involved. Assuming that parents are altruistic and internalize potential gains (and costs) of dissolving their marriage on their children when deciding to divorce, on the margin there may be benefits to divorce (at least for some).

What implications for politicians and policy makers then?

If our goal is to help children from divorced families to become self-reliant adults, policy-makers need to be mindful that divorce in itself may be a consequence, rather than a culprit, of the same underlying mechanism that causes the inferior child outcomes. Simply restricting access to divorce without consideration of individual needs and circumstances can be irresponsible; it may also risk jeopardizing the welfare of many families and their children.

The 'family über alles' crowd won't like that.

UPDATE:
Undercover economist Tim Harford links to this post on his newish FT weblog, adding:

Comments

[Karen Anderson]

Thanks for sharing. I have great reviews for virility ex.

[Maria]

Çilek sex shop Mağzamızda En Kaliteli sex ürünleri, sex oyuncakları şişme bebek ve erotic shop erotik giyim Ürünlerini Bulabileceğiniz Gibi Ayrıca, penis büyütücü, geciktirici, Bayan Uyarıcı, Ürünlerde Temin Edebilirsiniz. 1994 ten Bu Yana En Kaliteli Orjinal Erotik Ürünlerini Sağlamakta Olan Çilek Erotik Shop ta Tüm Cinsel Ürünleri Bulabilirsiniz

[Maria]

Çilek sex shop Mağzamızda En Kaliteli sex ürünleri, sex oyuncakları şişme bebek ve erotic shop erotik giyim Ürünlerini Bulabileceğiniz Gibi Ayrıca, penis büyütücü, geciktirici, Bayan Uyarıcı, Ürünlerde Temin Edebilirsiniz. 1994 ten Bu Yana En Kaliteli Orjinal Erotik Ürünlerini Sağlamakta Olan Çilek Erotik Shop ta Tüm Cinsel Ürünleri Bulabilirsiniz

[travesti siteleri]

http://www.travestiservisi.com

http://www.travesticeren.com

http://www.numberonearzu.com

http://www.trvgecilya.com

http://www.travestiw.com

[Send Free Sms to pakistan]

Thanks to share nice story.

[Cheap Golden State Warriors Tickets]

I didn't know you could do this but you know something new everyday.I wish I could find such informative sites more often. You must be really a great professional like the workers in the ringtones or mp ringtones sites, to make the superior thought. Not any person will.

[horkes]

Remove it from the loud sound described as among the People of the individual during sleep, especially in the medical sense, the most common cause of snoring soft palate observed in adults, little more than normal growth of the tongue, the muscles sag and lose tension and blockage of the airway during sleep titresmesidir little of the language.

[travesti siteleri]

travesti

travesti

travesti

ankara travestileri

bursa travestileri

gaziantep travestileri

[saç çıkarıcı]

Internet users in more than 2 billion people worldwide, 778 million the number of computers registered to the internet, the web of 313 million, a total of 205 million units in the name of that reported.

To the extent that there is hundreds of millions of blogs and video Ahmed, said that Turkey has been estimated that there's at around 30 million.

Ahmed, the computer recorded the number of Internet in Turkey has been reported around 4 million, 250 thousand under .. en told that the domain name.

[diş beyazlatma kalemi]

Save the essence of life in the treatment of skin allantoinle Snail! This essence creates a bad appearance and have no choice tahribatlarının skin no longer be removed even if the so-called cracks.

Nature of this herbal solution effectively and safely as possible to get rid of sivilcelerinizden! Skin care products on behalf of the choice deliberately choose to adhere and creams containing natural formulas that you keep the fault

[enhancexl]

Really Is this True ? I don't think so....

Mr. Jouny Jeam
Health CO LTD
hydroxycut reviews

[extra jel]

As millions of people who want to lose weight, but youDid he can not succeed in a kind of worry about your weight yanıyorsunuz more? You might think, and this process will be much easier to lose weight in a healthy way to get over ... Now a much more difficult as it used to have a nice view, but you have to do is that you want to attenuation.

[nubrilliance reviews]

Thanks your that awesum blog post , i must say that you are a professional blogger.. Am i right ?

[barkoff review]

Yup man you did great thing which i like most that i you created a blog about economy that should have to improve for progress :)

[proactiv reviews]

Hey you did cool job for share knowledge with everyone , Its look pretty cool :)

[silk n sensepil reviews]

You really deserve double thumbs up !!!

[sensa reviews]

You did awesum job , I really appreciate your effort & hard work , keep going bro :)

provillus | breast actives

[Virility EX]

As long as there is no fight in front of the children, they will be fine. Respect and transparency are key!