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Study of family factors in association with behavior problems amongst children of 6-18 years age group

Sandip s jogdand.

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Address for correspondence: Dr. Sandip S Jogdand, Department of Community Medicine, Rural Medical College, Loni, Ahmednagar - 413 736, Maharashtra, India. E-mail: [email protected]

Received 2013 Jun 24; Accepted 2014 Jan 4.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Background:

The ‘behaviour problems’ are having major impact on child's bodily and social development. The family provides emotional support to an individual as well as plays a major role in the formation of one's personality. The quality and nature of the parental nurturance that the child receives will profoundly influence his future development. The knowledge of these family factors associated with behaviour problems may be helpful to identify at risk children.

Aims and Objective:

To study the family factors associated with behaviour problems amongst children of 6-18 Yrs age group.

an adopted urban slum area of Govt. Medical College, Miraj Dist-Sangli.

Cross sectional study.

Materials and Methods:

the sample size was calculated based upon 40% prevalence obtained in pilot study. Total 600 Children in the age group of 6-18 years residing in the urban slum area and their parents were interviewed with the help of predesigned, pretested proforma. Analysis: chi-square test and risk estimate with Odd's ratio.

Our study result reveals significant association between prevalence of behaviour problems with absence of either or both real parents and alcoholism in the parent or care taker.

Conclusion:

The behaviour problems have good prognosis if they are recognized earlier. Family has great role in prevention of behaviour problems in children, so parental counseling may be helpful.

Keywords: Behaviour problems, alcoholism in parents, vulnerable factors, slum area

I NTRODUCTION

The behavior of a child is variable and depends on biological, social and environmental factors.[ 1 ] In learning to adjust to the world in which child is growing up, he develops certain kinds of behavior which are annoying or embarrassing to adults with whom he comes in contact. Adults frequently label such behaviors as problem behaviors.

Studies on the prevalence of behavior problems in children shown alarming results and yet strikingly varying from one study to another. Studies conducted in rural and urban areas of different parts of India suggest prevalence range ranging from approximately 1.16% (Dube, 1970)[ 2 ] to 43.1% (Vardhini).[ 3 ]

The “behavior problems” are having a major impact on the child's bodily and social development. It is the major concern of frustration to parents. Parent-child relationship gets disrupted and creates family conflicts and disharmony.

The family provides emotional support to an individual as well as plays a major role in the formation of one's personality. The quality and nature of the parental nurturance that the child receives will profoundly influence his future development. But only few homes provide the right type of environment to the growing child. Numerous studies have shown that children with various kinds of psychiatric and behavioral problems tend to come from homes or schools that are disadvantaged in some respect.[ 4 ]

Hence, the present study is planned to study certain family factors in association with behavior problems in adopted urban slum area of Government Medical College (GMC), Miraj.

M ATERIALS AND M ETHODS

Present cross sectional study was planned at an adopted urban slum area of GMC and Hospital Miraj. Parents of children in the study group and in some context children themselves interviewed with the help of predesigned, pretested proforma. The proforma was prepared after review of child behavior check list and achenbach system of empirically based assessment behavior problem check list used by different authors in their studies.[ 5 , 6 , 7 ] Also clinical psychologist who run own child guidance clinic at Miraj was consulted to finalize the proforma. The study populations enrolled for the study were permanent resident of the same area for last 5 years or more. Prior to data collection written consent was obtained and data was collected by the corresponding author with the help of fieldworkers of Urban Health Training Center.

The non-respondents or having any chronic illness and neurological disorders were excluded for the present study. The prevalence rate of 40% obtained in a pilot study was used to calculate sample size for the present study. A total 600 children in the age group of 6-18 years were enrolled for study from adopted urban slum area. The children were selected by simple random sampling method from the list of family survey registers of field workers. Their socio-demographic data and information regarding behavior was recorded. Socio-demographic data pertaining to socioeconomic classification, type of family, parent educational status, parent habits and addictions etc., was collected.

The behavior problems which were categorized as externalizing and internalizing in previous literature[ 8 , 9 , 10 ] were further sub classified as antisocial problems, habit problems, psychosomatic problems, personality problems, scholastic difficulties and eating problems etc.

Data was entered in Microsoft excel sheet and contingency tables were prepared and χ 2 was calculated to find out association between the factors and further strength of association was estimated by odd's ratio.

Observations

In our study, majority of children with behavior problems were coming from nuclear families. The observed difference of behavior problems with type of family was not found statistically significant [ Table 1 ].

Association between type of family and prevalence of behaviour problems

In the present study out of 600 children, there were 71 (11.83%) children with either one or both real parents absent (death of a parent). In the present study group the absence of either parent was only because of death of either parent (other causes separation or divorce were not found). Out of these children 56 (78.87%) children exhibited one or more than one behavior problem. The observed difference was found statistically significant, showing that there is an association between behavior problems and absence of parents [ Table 2 ].

Association between parental loss (absence of parent) and behaviour problems

Furthermore the strength of association estimated with odd's ratio show that the absence of either one or both parents increases the risk of behavior problems four times when compared to children having both biological parents present.

In the present study, out of 600 children, 238 (39.67%) children were from families having a history of alcoholism in parents or caretakers. Amongst these children, 134 (56.30%) children exhibited one or more than one behavior problems [ Table 3 ].

Association between alcoholism in parents and prevalence of behavior problems

Statistically there is a significant association between alcoholism in parents and prevalence of behavior problems in children. The risk of behavior problems increases almost 1.5 times among the children having alcoholic parent/care taker.

D ISCUSSION

In this study we observed no significant association between type of family and prevalence of behavior problems in children. Deivasigamani[ 11 ] (1989) and Gupta et al .[ 12 ] (2001) also had shown same result.

Although Bhalla et al .[ 13 ] (1986) and Singhal et al .[ 14 ] (1988) found the majority of the children from nuclear families attending pediatric out-patient department for their psychological and psychiatric problems and shown significant relationship with type of family.

These findings were inconsistent with the present study results.

The present study revealed a significant association between loss of parents and prevalence rate of behavior problems. Most of the research studies related to mental illness and psychological disturbances have shown a significant correlation between loss of parent and psychopathology in children.

Srinivasan and Raman[ 15 ] in their study estimated 9.32 times increased risk for psychopathology in children with long term parental separation Dayal et al .[ 16 ] (1986) studied social, cultural and educational background of 100 male delinquent children at Agra found most of the children from families with the absence of a father.

Deivasigamani (1989) found absent father in most of children with psychiatric morbidity.

Gregory[ 17 ] (1962) shown parental loss as a predisposing factor in delinquent behavior in children. Furthermore, Prat[ 18 ] (2003) stated that parental loss is associated with significant psychosocial and mental health problems in adolescents.

All these studies support the result of the present study showing significance of presence of parents in the life of children and adolescents.

Alcoholism in a parent or care taker of children was found significantly associated with prevalence of behavior problems in children.

Shenoy and Kapur[ 19 ] (1996) studied socio-demographic factors in children with scholastic backwardness; shown alcoholism in the parent as a significant factor. Srinath et al .[ 20 ] (2004) conducted a study at Bangalore among children aged 4-16 year found a significant association between alcoholism in parent and psychiatric morbidity in children.

Few of the western studies have also shown alcoholism in parents as a predisposing factor for psychological and mental problems in children and adolescents. Prat[ 21 ] (1999) stated that in US, India or South East Asia, adolescents who live in households where alcohol is abused are at risk being victims of family violence leading to behavior problems.

C ONCLUSION

The present study shows that family structure is changing more in favor of nuclear setup. Probably, may be because the majority of families are migrated from rural places to urban areas in search of work or for educational purposes. Hence the older persons in family remain at their homes in villages. All these factors contribute to the majority of nuclear families in slum areas. Probably other vulnerable factors present in these children in the present study may be masking the effect of type of family.

Parents are first guide and teacher in the life of children. They fulfill their physical and emotional needs and also provide social and psychological support to their child. The presence of parents increases the secured awareness in the child which prevents them from being exposed to peer group pressure or influence of the outer world.

Alcoholism is now a days increasing in India. In slum areas, most of the population is migrated and doing labor work. The increased economic pressure and indulged in heavy working makes this population involved in alcoholism. The alcoholism in parents is responsible for disharmony in home environments; there is poor interaction between family members, which hampers the psychosocial development of children.

Parents need to be helped to understand that ‘it is not enough to do things to their children; they must do things with them’. Family based interventions which focus on improving communication within the family had some success in treating behavior problems. In family therapy, the primary goal is to change dysfunctional family systems, clarify family roles and promote honest and open communication among family members. Good quality day care can have positive psychosocial benefits, particularly in case of children from poor or disordered homes.

Limitations of the study

There is need further exploratory study with the same topic. Due to time constraint the study has to rely upon the responses of parents and/child only. As the study was conducted in the community setting because of cultural barriers we could not include the questions pertaining to sexual behavior of children.

A CKNOWLEDGMENT

We appreciate the valuable help by Dr. Sandip S. Mangrule (Rehabilitation Psychologist) and Mrs. M.S. Mangrule (clinical psychologist) in preparation of questionnaire for the project and thank them for their contribution.

Source of Support: Nil.

Conflict of Interest: None declared.

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Family Dynamics and Child Outcomes: An Overview of Research and Open Questions

• Published: 22 March 2017
• Volume 33 , pages 163–184, ( 2017 )

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• Juho Härkönen 1 ,
• Fabrizio Bernardi 2 &
• Diederik Boertien 3  

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Previous research has documented that children who do not live with both biological parents fare somewhat worse on a variety of outcomes than those who do. In this article, which is the introduction to the Special Issue on “Family dynamics and children’s well-being and life chances in Europe,” we refine this picture by identifying variation in this conclusion depending on the family transitions and subpopulations studied. We start by discussing the general evidence accumulated for parental separation and ask whether the same picture emerges from research on other family transitions and structures. Subsequently, we review studies that have aimed to deal with endogeneity and discuss whether issues of causality challenge the general picture of family transitions lowering child well-being. Finally, we discuss whether previous evidence finds effects of family transitions on child outcomes to differ between children from different socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds, and across countries and time-periods studied. Each of the subsequent articles in this Special Issue contributes to these issues. Two articles provide evidence on how several less often studied family forms relate to child outcomes in the European context. Two other articles in this Special Issue contribute by resolving several key questions in research on variation in the consequences of parental separation by socioeconomic and immigrant background, two areas of research that have produced conflicting results so far.

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1 Introduction

The recent decades of family change—including the increases in divorce and separation rates, single parenthood, cohabitation, and step family formation—led to an explosion in popular and academic interest in the consequences of family dynamics for children’s well-being and life chances (cf. Amato 2000 , 2010 ; Amato and James 2010 ; Ribar 2004 ; Sweeney 2010 ; McLanahan et al. 2013 ). Most notably, previous studies have found that children who do not live with both biological parents fare somewhat worse than those who do in terms of psychological well-being, health, schooling, and later labor market attainment, and differ with respect to their own family lives in adulthood. Scholars have interpreted these findings through a relatively small group of factors that include parental and children’s stress associated with family transitions, family conflict, changes in economic resources, and parenting styles. Beyond these established findings, however, several questions remain imperfectly answered.

This Special Issue on “Family Dynamics and Children’s Well-Being and Life Chances in Europe” consists of this introductory article and four empirical studies that address some of these open questions. In general, they give more nuance to the overall association between growing up with both biological parents and child outcomes. More precisely, do these associations differ according to the type of family structure studied? Are these differences in child outcomes due to causal effects of family structures and transitions, or do they reflect preexisting disadvantages between families? And finally, are all children equally affected by family structures and transitions?

In this introduction, we first introduce the theme of family dynamics and children’s outcomes by giving an overview of the findings of parental separation and child outcomes (Sect.  2 ). Parental separation has been the family transition that has attracted most attention among social scientists, and many of our examples later in the article consider this research too. In addition to summarizing the evidence on the relationship between parental separation and psychological well-being, education, social relationships, and own family lives, we discuss how parental separations have been conceptualized, an issue we return to in the subsequent sections.

Parental separation is, however, just one of the family transitions children can experience during their childhoods. The first open question that in our view requires more attention regards the effects of these other family transitions and forms, namely the number of transitions, stepfamilies, and joint residential custody after parental separation (Sect.  3 ). Two of the articles in this Special Issue contribute to this stream of research. Mariani et al. ( 2017 ) present the first European analysis of the effects of family trajectories on children born to lone mothers. Radl et al. ( 2017 ) investigate, in addition to parental separation effects, whether co-residing with siblings or grandparents is related to child outcomes and whether the latter condition the former effects.

The second open question concerns the causal status of the estimated effects (Sect.  4 ): Do family structures and their changes really affect child outcomes, or do the associations reflect some unmeasured underlying factors? This question has attracted deserved attention (e.g., Amato 2000 ; Ribar 2004 ; McLanahan et al. 2013 ), and we review some commonly used methods, using the effects of parental separation as our example. We pay attention to what effects the methods can estimate, in addition to assessing which unobserved variables the different methods adjust for. This discussion highlights the importance of thinking about methodological choices and interpretations of the results in light of the underlying theoretical model of parental separation. The article in this Special Issue by Bernardi and Boertien ( 2017 ) provides also an empirical contribution to this field.

Finally, the last question refers to the heterogeneity in the effects of family dynamics: Are the consequences of parental separation and other family transitions similar for all children? Existing evidence suggests that the answer is no (Amato 2000 ; Demo and Fine 2010 ), but the conclusions about who suffers and who does not remain imperfect, as discussed in Sect.  5 . Three of the articles of this Special Issue analyze these questions, one from a cross-national perspective (Radl et al. 2017 ), one by comparing parental separation effects by socioeconomic background (Bernardi and Boertien 2017 ), and one by immigrant background (Erman and Härkönen 2017 ).

In the final section of this introduction (Sect.  6 ), we discuss some ways forward for future research on family dynamics and children’s outcomes. Two articles in this Special Issue fulfill part of this research agenda by providing evidence on how several less often studied family forms relate to child outcomes in the European context (Mariani et al. 2017 ; Radl et al. 2017 ). The two other articles in this Special Issue (Bernardi and Boertien 2017 ; Erman and Härkönen 2017 ) contribute to the research on heterogeneous consequences of parental separation by clarifying some open questions regarding variation in these consequences by socioeconomic and immigrant background.

2 Parental Separation and Children’s Outcomes

In the 2000s, the share of children who experienced their parents’ separation before age 15 ranged from 10 to 12% in countries such as Bulgaria, Georgia, Italy, and Spain to 35–42% in France, Estonia, Lithuania, and Russia (Andersson et al., forthcoming). In the late 1980s/early 1990s, the corresponding figures ranged from 7 to 30% (Italy and Sweden, respectively, Andersson and Philipov 2002 ).

Parental separation changes children’s lives in many ways. Many scholars conceptualize separations as processes, which often begin way before and last well beyond the actual separation (e.g., Amato 2000 ; Demo and Fine 2010 ; Härkönen 2014 ), even if these starting and ending points can be hard to define. The pre-separation process often involves increasing estrangement and conflict between the parents. These can themselves have negative effects on children’s well-being, and parental separation might therefore already start leaving its traces even before the parents have formally broken up. Not all separations follow such a trajectory. Some families may have had long-lasting conflicts, and other separations might have ended relatively well-functioning partnerships with at least moderate levels of satisfaction (Amato and Hohmann-Marriott 2007 ). The parental separation can in such cases come as an unexpected event for children.

As a result of the separation, children cease to live full-time with both parents, which requires adjustment to the new situation and can start, intensify, or end exposure to parental conflict (Amato 2010 ; Cherlin 1999 ; Pryor and Rodgers 2001 ). Even if joint residential custody of the child post-separation (i.e., children’s alternate living with each parent) is becoming increasingly common, up to one-third and above in Sweden (Bergström et al. 2015 ), the child often receives less involved parenting from the nonresident parent (usually the father), whereas the resident parent’s (usually the mother’s) parenting styles can be affected by increasing time demands (Amato 2000 , 2010 ; McLanahan and Sandefur 1994 ; Seltzer 2000 ). Besides changes in family relationships, a breakup of a household can lead to a drop in economic resources (e.g., Uunk 2004 ). Depending on the country, separated parents may need to adjust their labor supply to meet their new time and economic demands (Kalmijn et al. 2007 ; Uunk 2004 ). Many children also need to move after their parents’ separation, which requires adjustment to a new home environment and possibly a new neighborhood and school. A separation can be followed by further changes in the family structure, such as parental re-partnering, entry of step-siblings, and sometimes, another family dissolution.

Several studies have documented that on average, the lives of children whose parents separated differ from children who lived with both of their parents throughout childhood (Amato 2000 , 2010 ; McLanahan and Sandefur 1994 ; McLanahan et al. 2013 ; Härkönen 2014 ). In the next paragraphs, we provide an overview of the associations of parental separation with some of the most commonly studied child outcomes: psychological well-being and behavioral problems, education, social relationships, and own family lives. In the subsequent sections, we will refine this basic picture by concentrating on other family forms, causality, and heterogeneity in effects.

2.1 Psychological Well-Being and Behavioral Problems

Children of divorce have lower psychological well-being and more behavioral problems than children who grew up in intact families (Amato 2001 ; Amato and James 2010 ; Gähler and Palmtag 2015 ; Kiernan and Mensah 2009 ; Mandemakers and Kalmijn 2014 ). In general, parental separation is more strongly related to externalizing than internalizing problems (Amato 2001 ), and these associations can persist, and even become stronger, into adulthood (Chase-Lansdale et al. 1995 ; Cherlin et al. 1991 ; Lansford 2009 ).

Growing up in a conflict-ridden but stable family can have more negative effects on children’s psychological well-being than parental separation (e.g., Amato et al. 1995 ; Dronkers 1999 ; Hanson 1999 ; Demo and Fine 2010 ). Kiernan and Mensah ( 2009 ) found a role for both maternal depression and economic resources when explaining the lower emotional well-being of children from separated families, whereas Turunen ( 2013 ) found that parental involvement explained part of the lower emotional well-being of children with separated parents, but economic resources did not.

2.2 Education

Children of divorce have lower school grades and test scores (Dronkers 1992 ; Mandemakers and Kalmijn 2014 ; Grätz 2015 ), have lower school engagement (Havermans et al. 2014 ), differ in the kind of track entered in high school (Dronkers 1992 ; Jonsson and Gähler 1997 ; Grätz 2015 ), and have lower final educational attainment (Bernardi and Radl 2014 ; Bernardi and Boertien 2016a ; Gähler and Palmtag 2015 ).

Lower school grades and cognitive performance explain part, but not all of the effect of parental separation on completed education (Dronkers 1992 ). A recent study found that British children of divorce were less likely to continue to full-time upper secondary education even though the parental separation did not affect their school grades (Bernardi and Boertien 2016a ). Parental separation can therefore affect the children’s educational decisions irrespective of their school performance.

Changes in parental resources are an important explanation for the lower educational performance of the children of divorce (Bernardi and Boertien 2016a ; Jonsson and Gähler 1997 ; McLanahan and Sandefur 1994 ; Thomson et al. 1994 ). Studies that have looked into the role of parenting have found differing results, some reporting that parenting partly mediates the effect of separation on educational attainment, while others found parenting to not influence the relationship between parental divorce and school outcomes (Dronkers 1992 ).

2.3 Social Relationships

Despite the increase in shared residential custody (Bjarnason and Arnarsson 2011 ), parental separation generally reduces the child’s contact frequency and relationship quality with the nonresident parent (usually the father), with grandparents and, sometimes, the mother (e.g., Kalmijn 2012 ; Kalmijn and Dronkers 2015 ; Lansford 2009 ). These effects can last into adulthood (Albertini and Garriga 2011 ; Kalmijn 2012 ). Joint residential custody, good inter-parental relations, and good early child-father relations can improve post-separation contact with the father (Kalmijn 2015 ; Kalmijn and Dronkers 2015 ). On the other hand, parental separation can improve the relationships between siblings due to mutual support (Geser 2001 ), but does not seem to trigger more support from friends and other kin (Kalmijn and Dronkers 2015 ).

Good parent–child relationships are desirable by themselves and can also improve other child outcomes (Bastaits et al. 2012 ; Swiss and Le Bourdais 2009 ). For example, having a close relationship with the nonresident parent who engages in authoritative parenting has been found to foster children’s well-being and academic success (Amato and Gilbreth 1999 ). At the same time, contact frequency alone is less important and in some cases, the nonresident parent’s involvement may have negative effects if it increases instability and stress for the child (Laumann-Billings and Emery 2000 ), for example due to continued parental conflict (Kalil et al. 2011 ).

2.4 Own Family Lives

Children of divorce tend to start dating and have their sexual initiation earlier (Wolfinger 2005 ) and many move out of the parental home at a younger age (e.g., Ní Bhrolcháin et al. 2000 ; Ongaro and Mazzuco 2009 ), often because of conflict with parents and their potential new partners (Wolfinger 2005 ). Some studies have also found that children of divorce start cohabiting earlier, are more likely to cohabit than to marry, and have partners of lower socioeconomic status (Erola et al. 2012 ; Reneflot 2009 ; but see also Ní Bhrolcháin et al. 2000 ).

The most consistent family demographic finding is that children whose parents divorced are more likely to divorce themselves as adults (e.g., Diekmann and Engelhardt 1999 ; Dronkers and Härkönen 2008 ; Kiernan and Cherlin 1999 ; Lyngstad and Engelhardt 2009 ; Wolfinger 2005 ). Differences in the life course trajectories before forming the union explain part of this association (Diekmann and Engelhardt 1999 ; Kiernan and Cherlin 1999 ). Other studies have pointed out that parental separation can lead to poorer interpersonal skills and set an example of a feasible solution to relationship problems (Wolfinger 2005 ).

3 What About Other Family Forms?

We have so far focused on parental separation and its relation to child outcomes. Parental separation is not the only family transition children can experience. Between <5% (much of Europe) and up to 15% (Czech Republic, Russia, UK, and USA) of children are born to lone mothers (Andersson et al., forthcoming; Mariani et al. 2017 , this Special Issue). Furthermore, between 14% (Italy and Georgia) and 60% (Belgium) of European children whose parents separate end up living with a stepparent within 6 years (Andersson et al., forthcoming) and often, with step-siblings (Halpern-Meekin and Tach 2008 ). Children’s residence arrangements likewise vary, with some residing primarily with one parent (usually the mother), whereas others alternate between parents (joint residential custody). Extending the focus of research beyond parental separation is necessary to form a more comprehensive view of the effects of the changing family landscape on children’s lives (King 2009 ; Sweeney 2010 ). Footnote 1

One argument puts forward that family stability rather than family structure matters for children’s well-being (cf. Fomby and Cherlin 2007 ; Waldfogel et al. 2010 ). From this perspective, children born to lone mothers who do not experience any family transitions during their childhood (such as the entrance of a stepparent) should do better than children who were born in a two-parent family but experienced a family transition (such as parental separation). Others claim that specific family forms and movements between them do matter beyond general family instability (Magnuson and Berger 2009 ; Lee and McLanahan 2015 ). The findings of Mariani et al. ( 2017 , this Special Issue) are among those that speak against the general instability thesis and show that the types of family transitions experienced by children born to lone mothers matter for their well-being.

Stepfamilies have gained the attention of many scholars. Children in stepfamilies tend to have poorer outcomes compared to those from intact families and display patterns of well-being closer to single-parent families (Amato 1994 , 2001 ; Gennetian 2005 ; Jonsson and Gähler 1997 ; Thomson et al. 1994 ). Indeed, children in stepfamilies can even have lower psychological well-being and educational achievement than children living with a single mother (Amato 1994 ; Biblarz and Raftery 1999 ; Thomson et al. 1994 ).

Reasons for the poorer performance of children with stepparents include the added complexity in family relationships that is often introduced by the presence of a stepparent. This can lead to ambiguity in roles and to conflict in the family (Thomson et al. 1994 ; Sweeney 2010 ), which is among the reasons why having a stepparent often leads to an earlier move from the parental home, especially among girls (Ní Bhrolcháin et al. 2000 ; Reneflot 2009 ). Another explanation points to the presence of step-siblings as stepparents may put less time and effort into their stepchildren than their biological ones (Biblarz and Raftery 1999 ; Evenhouse and Reilly 2004 ). However, having a stepparent can also have positive effects as (s)he can provide financial resources or help in monitoring the children (Thomson et al. 1994 ; King 2006 ; Sweeney 2010 ). Erola and Jalovaara ( 2016 ) showed how a stepparent’s SES was more predictive on adulthood SES than the nonresident father’s SES, and as predictive as the biological father’s SES in intact families. All in all, the effects of step-parenthood are complex and can differ between children who experienced a parental separation and those who never lived with their biological father (Sweeney 2010 ).

The increase in joint residential custody after parental separation has raised interest in its consequences for children. Many studies have reported that children in joint residential custody fare better than children who reside with only one of the parents (usually the mother) on outcomes such as health and psychological well-being, and contact and relationships with their parents and grandparents (Bjarnason and Arnarsson 2011 ; Turunen 2016 ; Westphal et al. 2015 ). However, questions of causality remain unresolved and parents who opt for joint custody might have been particularly selected from those with higher socioeconomic status and lower levels of post-separation conflict. Indeed, many studies find that joint custody may have negative consequences for children in case of high parental conflict (e.g., Vanassche et al. 2014 ; also, Kalil et al. 2011 ). This suggests that policy changes toward joint custody as a default solution may produce unwanted consequences.

4 But What About Causality?

There is a long-standing debate that concerns whether associations between family types and child outcomes reflect causal effects, or whether they are confounded by unmeasured variables. For example, parents who separate can have different (unmeasured) personality traits from those who do not. Other examples include parental unemployment, mental health, or a developing substance abuse problem, which may not only lead to separation, but also affect the parent’s children.

Researchers have used increasingly sophisticated methods to control for different unmeasured sources of bias (for reviews, Amato 2000 , 2010 ; Ribar 2004 ; McLanahan et al. 2013 ). In this section, we discuss some of these methods. We focus on studies that have estimated the effects of parental separation, which serves to illustrate some of the questions involved.

Like most similar reviews, we discuss which (un)measured confounders can be controlled for by the different methods and provide examples of studies that have used them. We also discuss some of the limitations to causal inference in these methods, particularly in light of the underlying theoretical model of parental separation that is assumed. Above, we discussed how parental separations are often theorized as processes that can follow quite different trajectories for different families (Amato 2000 ; Demo and Fine 2010 ; Härkönen 2014 ). Some separations are characterized by a downward spiral of increasing conflict, which can leave its mark on children already before the parents physically separate. Other separations end relatively well-functioning families and can come as a surprise to the children, whereas in some cases the families had high conflict levels for a long time. In this section, we discuss causal inference in light of these underlying models. In the next section, we discuss how these different types of parental separations can have different effects on children.

In addition, we engage in a related but much smaller discussion of what causal questions the different methods can be used to answer (cf., Manski et al. 1992 ; Ní Bhrolcháin 2001 ; Sigle-Rushton et al. 2014 ). A major issue in this regard concerns the counterfactual scenario assumed by different methods. In most studies, the estimated effects are interpreted as telling about how the parents’ physical separation (the separation event) affected the children compared to the counterfactual case in which the parents did not separate. This is, however, not the only possible effect that can be estimated, nor is this interpretation necessarily the correct one in each case.

First, knowing about the effects of the parental separation event is obviously important, but scholars, parents, counselors, and policy makers could likewise benefit from knowing about the “total” effects of parental separation that include the effects of the preceding separation process as well. Second, instead of asking what the effect of the parental separation (compared to them staying together) is, one can ask what the effect is of the parents separating at a specific point in time (the effect of postponing separation) (cf. Furstenberg and Kiernan 2001 ). Our discussion below points to these issues and suggests how some methods can be more appropriate for answering certain questions than others. Rather than providing a comprehensive discussion on this relatively uncovered topic, we wish to stimulate closer consideration of these issues in future research.

4.1 Regression Models

Before discussing methods that adjust for unmeasured confounding factors, we briefly discuss estimation of parental separation effects with linear and logistic (or similar) regression models, which are by far the most common methods used. With these methods, one compares the outcomes of children who experienced parental separation to the outcomes of children from intact families, adjusting for observed confounding variables. Because the possibilities for controlling for all factors that may bias the results are limited, the estimates from regression models cannot usually be interpreted as causal effects (e.g., McLanahan et al. 2013 ; Ribar 2004 ).

Pre-separation parental conflict is often pointed out as an omitted variable that can threaten causal claims. Controlling for pre-separation conflict generally leads to a substantial reduction in the effect of parental separation (e.g., Hanson 1999 ; Gähler and Garriga 2013 ), suggesting that exposure to the parental conflict rather than the parental separation event is largely responsible for the poorer performance of the children of divorce. This example can be used to think about the correspondence between the specified regression model and the underlying theoretical model of parental separation. Controlling for the level of pre-separation parental conflict (or related measures of the family environment) is most appropriate if it is reasonable to assume that families’ conflict levels remain stable; comparing children from separated and intact families at similar levels of earlier conflict can then inform about how the children of divorce would have fared had the parents remained together. However, this is not obvious if the separation followed an increase in parental conflict, because the family environment may have continued to worsen had the parents not separated.

If the above and other conditions for making causal claims are met, which effects do they inform us about? A regression model that controls for pre-separation parental conflict or other related measures is best seen as telling about the effects of the parental separation event. However, an increase in parental conflict is often an inherent part of the parental separation process, and controlling for levels of parental conflict close to the parental separation would not be warranted if one is interested in understanding how exposure to the parental separation process, in addition to the separation event, affects children’s outcomes (cf. Amato 2000 ). The choice of control variables should thus be done with a consideration to the underlying model of parental separation and the effect one wants to estimate.

4.2 Sibling Fixed Effects

Sibling fixed effects (SFE) models compare siblings from the same family who differ in their experience of parental separation before a certain age or life stage, or in the amount of time spent in a specific family type (cf. McLanahan et al. 2013 ; Sigle-Rushton et al. 2014 ). SFE controls for factors and experiences that are shared by the siblings, such as parental SES and many neighborhood and school characteristics. This has made SFE a popular method, not least in Europe. Some SFE studies found no effects of parental separation or other family forms on educational outcomes (Björklund and Sundström 2006 ). Others have found a weak to moderate negative effect on various outcomes even in an SFE design (e.g., Ermisch et al. 2004 ; Sandefur and Wells 1999 ; Sigle-Rushton et al. 2014 ; Grätz 2015 ).

Comparison of siblings from the same family is a core aspect of the SFE design. This affects the data requirements and the interpretation of the results. To fix ideas, we can use an example of the effects of parental separation on children’s school grades at age 15. For an SFE analysis, one needs data on multiple siblings, some of whom experienced the parental separation before age 15 whereas others did not. This requirement reduces the effective sample size. The sibling who did not experience the parental separation is always the older one, and her grades are used to infer about the counterfactual grades of her younger sibling, had she not experienced the parental separation. SFE controls for everything shared by the siblings, but additional controls are needed to adjust for differences between them. Some of these—such as birth order and birth cohort and/or parental age (Sigle-Rushton et al. 2014 )—are available in many datasets, but remaining unobserved differences (as well as measurement error) can cause important bias to the estimates (Ermisch et al. 2004 ; Frisell et al. 2012 ).

SFE models are most informative of the effects of parental separation if it is reasonable to assume that the family environment (including levels of parental conflict) would remain stable in the absence of the parental separation (Sigle-Rushton et al. 2014 ). In such a case, it is most likely that the younger sibling would have experienced a similar family environment as the older sibling, had the parents not separated. The interpretation of SFE results becomes more problematic if the parental separation is the culmination of a deterioration of the family environment (such as increased parental conflict). It is likely that the family environment would have continued to deteriorate had the parents not separated, and the younger sibling would have been taking her grades in a more conflictual family (than her older sibling experienced). Without additional measures, SFE models thus generally rely on the assumption of the stability of the family environment (cf. Sigle-Rushton et al. 2014 ).

SFE models estimate the effect of the event of the parental separation rather than the separation process. Because SFE models are estimated from a subsample of families that dissolved, the estimates are difficult to generalize without making additional assumptions. Also, because the estimates tell about differences between siblings who experienced parental separation but at different ages, or experienced a different amount of time in a separated family, the estimates are best interpreted as effects of the timing of the separation, as argued in detail by Sigle-Rushton and colleagues (2014).

4.3 Longitudinal Designs

Research with longitudinal data has been more applied  in the USA than in Europe (McLanahan et al. 2013 ), possibly because of data access issues. Such data can be analyzed using many methods, but unlike with SFE, these methods can only be used to analyze outcomes that are measured more than once. Similar to SFE models, longitudinal studies generally report weaker effects on child outcomes of parental separation and other family transitions than found in cross-sectional analyses.

4.3.1 Lagged Dependent Variables

In lagged dependent variable (LDV) analyses, one controls for the dependent variable at an earlier measurement point (before parental separation) (Johnson 2005 ; McLanahan et al. 2013 ). The idea is to adjust for initial differences in outcomes between children from separated and intact families. LDV is mostly used in cohort and other studies with just two or few measurement points. Early examples include studies in Britain, which found that although children of divorce had lower psychological well-being already pre-divorce, parental divorce had negative long-term effects (Cherlin et al. 1991 ; Chase-Lansdale et al. 1995 ). Limitations of LDV models include that the estimates are sensitive to omitted variables that affect both the separation and the pre-separation outcome, as well as measurement error in the latter (Johnson 2005 ).

The pre-separation measurement point can correspond poorly to the stages of the parental separation process, especially in cohort studies in which measurements are often done several years apart. LDV models are therefore most appropriate if the differences in the outcome between children who experienced parental separation and those who did not can be assumed to be stable. If one assumes that the child’s well-being deteriorated prior to the separation, the lagged dependent variable can capture part of the effect of the separation process. However, if the measurements are taken several years apart, it is even more difficult than usual to tell whether the outcome was measured before or during the pre-separation deterioration in well-being and consequently, how the estimated coefficient should be interpreted.

4.3.2 Individual Fixed Effects

Individual fixed effects (IFE) models are based on comparing individuals before and after the parental separation and in effect, use individuals as their own control groups to control for time-constant unobserved factors. In an early British IFE study, Cherlin et al. ( 1998 ) concluded that experience of parental separation had weak to moderate negative effects on adulthood psychological well-being, and Amato and Anthony ( 2014 ) reported similar effects on educational, psychological, and health outcomes in the USA. Other American studies have used IFE designs to analyze the effects of the number of transitions (e.g., Fomby and Cherlin 2007 ), of different family transitions (e.g., Lee and McLanahan 2015 ), or combined SFE and IFE approaches (Gennetian 2005 ).

IFE methods estimate the effect of parental separation if it is reasonable to assume that the child whose parents separated would have experienced similar (age-specific) outcomes in the absence of separation as observed before the separation (Aughinbaugh et al. 2005 ). Again, this is most feasible if the child’s level of well-being can be assumed to have remained stable. This is less likely if the child’s well-being began to deteriorate already before the separation, because this deterioration could have continued had the parents not separated. Two US studies attempted to address this issue by tracing behavioral problems and academic achievement before and after the parental separation (Aughinbaugh et al. 2005 ) and by using a triple-difference approach, which compares trends (and not just levels) in the outcome between children from separated and intact families (Sanz-de-Galdeano and Vuri 2007 ). Neither study found the event of parental separation to have appreciable effects.

Furthermore, as in SFE models, IFE effects are estimated only from those children who actually experienced the separation. This generally means a reduction in sample size. For the same reason, IFE results generalize primarily to that group.

4.3.3 Placebo Tests and Growth-Curve Models

Longitudinal data can also be used to conduct “placebo tests,” that is, to analyze whether future separation (e.g., t  + 1) predicts earlier outcomes ( t , or earlier). Bernardi and Boertien (in this Special Issue) found with British data that although children who experienced parental separation before age 16 had a lower probability of transitioning to post-compulsory secondary education, this was not the case for children whose parents separated between ages 17 and 19 (i.e., after the educational transition age). This supports the view that the separation, and not the family environment that preceded it, had an effect on educational decisions.

Finally, longitudinal data have been analyzed with growth-curve models (GCM) to track trajectories in children’s outcomes. Cherlin et al. ( 1998 ) reported that the effects of parental separation on psychological problems increased through adolescence and young adulthood. Even though growth-curve models enable analysis of how effects develop, they are not immune to confounding from unmeasured variables that can affect both the initial level of well-being and its development over time (McLanahan et al. 2013 ). To address this, Kim ( 2011 ) combined matching methods with GCM and found that cognitive skills and non-cognitive traits developed negatively already through the separation period and the effects were amplified by the separation event.

4.4 Interpreting Causal Effects

Controlling for measured and unmeasured confounders practically always leads to reduced effect sizes, which means that children who experienced parental separation would have fared differently to children from intact families regardless. Some studies have found no effects, but the prevailing conclusion is that parental separation can have weak to moderate negative effects (Amato 2000 , 2010 ; McLanahan et al. 2013 ; Ribar 2004 ).

Increasing adoption of advanced methods to control for unmeasured variables improves our understanding of the consequences of family change. None of the methods are, however, completely immune to confounding by unobserved variables. Relatedly, they also correspond differently to underlying theoretical models of parental separation, which affects their interpretation.

We repeatedly mentioned how the methods are most robust if it is reasonable to assume that the family environment, and the children’s well-being, remained stable before the separation and would have remained stable in its absence. Such a scenario characterizes some separations but provides a poorer description of many others where separation was a culmination of a deteriorating family environment (Amato 2000 ; Demo and Fine 2010 ; Härkönen 2014 ). In some cases, additional (time-varying) control variables (e.g., Ermisch et al. 2004 ; Lee and McLanahan 2015 ) or more complex research designs (e.g., Sanz-de-Galdeano and Vuri 2007 ) can be used to alleviate these problems. When choosing the appropriate variables or designs, one should decide whether one is interested in the effects of the separation event or the exposure to the whole separation process. Both are relevant, and their analysis each carries specific challenges. We also discussed how some estimates might be better interpreted as indicators of the influence of the timing of parental separation (cf. Furstenberg and Kiernan 2001 ), another relevant yet different question. All in all, scholars should pay attention to which effects their methods estimate and think of this in light of the underlying theoretical model of parental separation or other family dynamics they are interested in (cf. Manski et al. 1992 ; Ní Bhrolcháin 2001 ).

5 For Whom, When, and Where are Family Transitions Most Consequential?

Most studies reviewed above analyzed what happens on average . Whereas the finding that children growing up in non-traditional families have different outcomes is very consistent, this result hides a large variation in effects at the individual level. A minority of children suffer from a parental separation, but a somewhat smaller minority shows improvements in well-being and performance, and even if parental separation can be a taxing experience associated with sadness and feelings of loss, a large minority or even a majority of children do “just fine” without robust effects in either direction (Amato 2000 , 2010 ; Amato and Anthony 2014 ; Amato and James 2010 ; Demo and Fine 2010 ). Next, we discuss how this heterogeneity in effects is related to pre-separation parental conflict and children’s and parents’ socio-demographic attributes. After that, we review what is known about variation in the effects over time and cross-nationally.

5.1 For Whom Does It Matter?

Which children are more likely to suffer from parental separation than others? Studies both from the USA (Amato et al. 1995 ; Hanson 1999 ; Booth and Amato 2001 ) and Europe (Dronkers 1999 ) have found that pre-separation parental conflict moderates the effects of the separation. Parental separation can be beneficial for children from high-conflict families, but is more likely to have negative effects when parental conflict was low and the separation came as a relative surprise.

Other studies have analyzed variation in the effects of parental separation by demographic characteristics. Although some studies have found gender-specific effects, most have not, leading Amato and James ( 2010 ) to conclude that the gender differences in effects are modest at most. Similar variation in findings characterizes research on effects of stepfamilies (Sweeney 2010 ).

Child’s age at parental separation has been another moderator of interest. Breakups occurring while children are adults have no or the smallest effects (Cherlin et al. 1998 ; Kiernan and Cherlin 1999 ; Furstenberg and Kiernan 2001 ; Lyngstad and Engelhardt 2009 ). Studies on educational outcomes often find the effects to be most pronounced when parents divorced close to important educational decision points (Jonsson and Gähler 1997 ; Lyngstad and Engelhardt 2009 ; Sigle-Rushton et al. 2014 ). Otherwise, findings differ in their conclusions about the childhood stages most sensitive to family disruption, and the specific pattern of heterogeneity is likely to depend on the outcome studied.

Recently, scholars have become increasingly interested in whether effects of parental separation differ by parental socioeconomic status (Augustine 2014 ; Grätz 2015 ; Mandemakers and Kalmijn 2014 ). Although having resources can help families to deal with family transitions, children from resourceful families could also lose more from parental separation (Bernardi and Radl 2014 ; Bernardi and Boertien 2016a ). In line with these contrasting predictions, empirical results are mixed, with some findings pointing to stronger negative effects in families with high (Augustine 2014 ; Grätz 2015 ; Mandemakers and Kalmijn 2014 ) or low socioeconomic status (Bernardi and Boertien 2016a ; Bernardi and Radl 2014 ; Biblarz and Raftery 1999 ; Martin 2012 ; McLanahan and Sandefur 1994 ). Bernardi and Boertien ( 2017 , this Special Issue) address this inconsistency. They show that methodological choices underlie part of this variation in results, but their substantive conclusion is that the negative effect of parental separation on educational choices is stronger for children whose high-socioeconomic status father moves out. The greater financial losses are an important part of the explanation, which also suggests that the results might be different for outcomes that are less responsive to financial resources.

Other studies have compared the effects of parental separation and single parenthood between ethnic, racial, and migrant groups. Many US studies have found that Black children are less affected by growing up in a non-intact family than White children (Fomby and Cherlin 2007 ; McLanahan and Bumpass 1988 ; McLanahan and Sandefur 1994 ; Sun and Li 2007 ). Some European studies have found variation in family structure effects by ethnic and immigrant background (Kalmijn 2010 , forthcoming; Erman and Härkönen, this ‘Special Issue’). In general, the family structure effects are weaker in groups in which parental separation and single motherhood are more common, which has been explained by less stigma, better ways of handling father absence, a broadly disadvantaged position with less to lose, or differential selection by unobserved factors, as argued by Erman and Härkönen in this Special Issue.

Instead of analyzing different predictors of separation separately, Amato and Anthony ( 2014 ) used several of these predictors together to, first, predict the children’s propensity to experience parental separation, and second, analyze whether parental divorce effects vary by this propensity. They found that the effects were the strongest for children with the highest risk of experiencing parental divorce, a result seemingly at odds with the above-mentioned findings of weaker effects in groups with higher separation rates.

5.2 Stability Over Time

It is straightforward to expect that the effects of family transitions on child outcomes should have waned over time. As non-traditional family forms have become more common, the social stigma attached to them should decrease (Lansford 2009 ). Children of divorce are also increasingly likely to retain close contact with both of their parents (e.g., Amato and Gilbreth 1999 ; Gähler and Palmtag 2015 ) and families and societies may have in general become better in handling the consequences of family change. Yet, several studies have reported remarkable stability in the negative associations between parental separation and educational attainment, psychological well-being, and own family dissolution risk (Albertini and Garriga 2011 ; Biblarz and Raftery 1999 ; Dronkers and Härkönen 2008 ; Sigle-Rushton et al. 2005 ; Li and Wu 2008 ; Gähler and Palmtag 2015 ). Some studies have found changing effects, but in opposite directions: a waning intergenerational transmission of divorce (Wolfinger 2005 ; Engelhardt et al. 2002 ), but a strengthening effect of parental separation on educational attainment (Kreidl et al. 2017 ).

Why this general stability? One possibility is that although some factors associated with parental separation, such as stigma, have become less common, other proximate consequences—including shock, grief, and anger over the separation of the parents (Pryor and Rodgers 2001 )—have remained stable. Another potential explanation refers to changing selection into separation. Parental separation has become increasingly associated with low levels of maternal education (Härkönen and Dronkers 2006 ). The motives for divorce have also changed over time. Fewer parental separations are today preceded by severe conflict and violence, whereas more are characterized by psychological motives and disagreements upon the division of labor (De Graaf and Kalmijn 2006 ; Gähler and Palmtag 2015 ). In general, changing selectivity of parental separation can have offset any weakening trend in its effects. The data requirements to disentangle these explanations are high, but those studies which have appropriate variables support the conclusion of a generally stable effect (Sigle-Rushton et al. 2005 ; Gähler and Palmtag 2015 ).

5.3 Cross-National Variation

Associations between family structure and child outcomes are robust in the sense that they are generally found in each country (cf. Amato and James 2010 ) and are often more similar than one might expect (Härkönen 2015 ). However, many studies have reported cross-national variation in the strength of associations (e.g., Brolin Låftman 2010 ; Radl et al. 2017 , this Special Issue). A series of studies found that countries with policies aimed at equalizing the living conditions between different types of families had smaller family structure gaps in educational achievement (Pong et al. 2003 ; Hampden-Thompson 2013 ; however, see Brolin Låftman 2010 ). Larger family structure differences have also been reported in economically more developed societies, where the nuclear family plays a more important role (Amato and Boyd 2014 ).

Dronkers and Härkönen ( 2008 ) found that the intergenerational transmission of divorce was weaker in countries where parental divorce was more common. This fits the intuition of weaker penalties when certain family behaviors are more common. However, other studies have found the opposite (Pong et al. 2003 ; Kreidl et al. 2017 ). An explanation is that in societies in which separation is uncommon, it is more often a solution to ending very troubled relationships and therefore more likely to be beneficial for the children.

6 Discussion and Recommendations for Future Research

We set the stage for future research in four directions. First, understanding the effects of heterogeneous family forms and transitions will be a research priority in the future as well (Amato 2010 ). Most of the research reviewed in this introduction has focused on the effects of parental separation, but scholars have been increasingly aware of and interested in the complexity of family forms in today’s societies. Some of this research was addressed in this article, and the analyses by Mariani, Özcan, and Goisis, and Radl, Salazar, and Cebolla-Boado in this Special Issue are further contributions to this topic: the former being the first to look at the outcomes of children born in lone mother families within one European country (the UK), and the latter providing a cross-national overview of the effects of various types of family structures. Future research, particularly in Europe, should continue addressing questions such as the effects of experiencing multiple family transitions and of complex family life course trajectories during childhood. Family complexity can also mean that the boundaries between family forms become blurred. An example is the increasing popularity of joint residential custody, which questions earlier divisions into single-parent and two-parent families. Understanding the effects of family forms under family complexity thus also means an update in conceptual thinking.

Second, children react to (changes in) family circumstances in remarkably different ways (e.g., Amato and Anthony 2014 ), which is hidden under the average effects reported in most studies. Three of the papers in this Special Issue address these questions and identify subgroups for which effects appear to be more limited compared to other groups such as low SES families and children from ethnic minorities. Better understanding the sources of vulnerability and resilience in the face of family change will continue to be a priority for research, and in this task, future research will benefit from combining theoretical and methodological approaches from sociology, demography, psychology, and genetics (cf. Amato 2010 ; Demo and Fine 2010 ).

Another related task for future research will be to systematize the research on variation in family structure effects across individuals and families, groups, and societal contexts. As reviewed in this article, the findings often point to confusingly different directions. Many studies, including the ones by Erman and Härkönen and Bernardi and Boertien in this Special Issue, have found that parental separation effects on educational outcomes are weaker in socioeconomic and ethnic groups where it is more frequent, but Amato and Anthony ( 2014 ) reported that the effects are more negative for children who had the highest risk of experiencing parental separation. Yet another group of studies have reported that the effects of parental separation are more negative when the parents had lower levels of conflict—and presumably, low likelihood of separating—before the separation (Amato et al. 1995 ; Dronkers 1999 ; Hanson 1999 ; Demo and Fine 2010 ). Many cross-national studies have concluded that these effects are stronger in societies in which parental separation is more common (Pong et al. 2003 ; Kreidl et al. 2017 ). At the same time, most studies continue to find that parental separation effects have remained stable even though more children have been experiencing it. Understanding these seemingly contradictory results will need theoretical development and appropriate data and designs to test them. Bernardi’s and Boertien’s study in this Special Issue provides a good example of such research.

Third, future research will undoubtedly continue employing sophisticated methods to analyze whether family structures and transitions have causal effects on children’s lives. Yet as discussed above, conceptual thought of what effects can be estimated with different methods and what effects are of most theoretical interest has not necessarily kept up with the methodological advances (for exceptions: Manski et al. 1992 ; Ní Bhrolcháin 2001 ; Sigle-Rushton et al. 2014 ). Using parental separation as our example, we distinguished between the effects of separations as events and separations as processes, as well as between the experience of separation and its timing. Researchers should pay more attention to these differences in the conceptualization of effects, which essentially boils down to the consideration of the underlying theoretical model of parental separation. Better recognition of these differences can contribute to theory-building and methodological advancement and help in formulating advice to parents, family counselors, and policy makers.

Last, these issues have implications for understanding social inequality in a time of family change. The “diverging destinies” thesis (McLanahan and Percheski 2008 ) holds that socioeconomically uneven family change, in which the retreat from stable two-parent families is happening particularly among those with low levels of education, can reduce social mobility. Yet whether this is the case depends not only on differences in family structures by socioeconomic background, but also on the strength of the effects of these family structures on the outcomes in question; if the effects are nil or weak, it does not matter who lives in which kind of family. The inequality-amplifying effects of socioeconomic differences in family structures can furthermore be shaped by heterogeneity in family structure effects (Bernardi and Boertien 2016b ). Bernardi’s and Boertien’s (2017, this Special Issue) findings, that the negative effects of parental separation are weaker for children whose parents have low levels of education, imply that the socioeconomic differences in family instability are less important in affecting intergenerational inequality than often thought. Erman’s and Härkönen’s ( 2017 , this Special Issue) results show that parental separation effects are weaker among ancestry groups where parental separation is more common suggest the same for ethnic inequalities. Together, these findings refine arguments stating that divergence in family structures will lead to an increase in inequality. Instead, the results imply that whether this happens or not is contingent on the strength of these effects and on whether they are similar across groups.

This quest will likely continue in the future; Ultee ( 2016 ) anticipated that in 2096, the book awarded for preservation of European sociological research will be called “Growing Up With Four Parents”.

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Acknowledgements

This Special Issue features research done within work package 5 (Family Transitions and Children’s Life Chances) of FamiliesAndSocieties ( www.familiesandsocieties.eu ). We thank the members of the consortium and our work package for productive collaborations and fruitful discussions during the project. We also thank the editorial team of European Journal of Population for the opportunity to publish this Special Issue and their feedback on earlier drafts. In addition, we are grateful to the reviewers for constructive comments to earlier versions to each of the articles in this Special Issue. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under Grant Agreement No. 320116 for the research project FamiliesAndSocieties and from the Strategic Research Council of the Academy of Finland (Decision Number: 293103) for the research consortium Tackling Inequality in Time of Austerity (TITA).

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Department of Political and Social Sciences, European University Institute, Via dei Roccettini 9, 50014, San Domenico di Fiesole, Italy

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Härkönen, J., Bernardi, F. & Boertien, D. Family Dynamics and Child Outcomes: An Overview of Research and Open Questions. Eur J Population 33 , 163–184 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-017-9424-6

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-017-9424-6

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• A Research Guide
• Research Paper Topics

40 Family Issues Research Paper Topics

Read Also: The Best Research Paper Writing Service For Writing Research Papers

40 Marriage and Family Research Topics for any Taste

• Parental neglect. Is it enough for a kid to have food, clothes, and shelter to grow up healthy?
• Divorce and its consequences for all the family members. Minimizing the negative impact of divorce
• Toxic and narcissistic parents. Overcoming the trauma of a dysfunctional family
• To live up to the family expectation: what to do if they are too high for a human being?
• Family violence: where is the point of no return?
• Sexual abuse in the family. The strategy of escaping and organizations that can help
• Toxic and abusive relationship. The psychologies issues of breaking up with toxic partner
• Substance abuse in the family. It is always possible to save yourself, but is it possible to save the rest?
• War Veterans and their families. Do Vets the only ones there who need help?
• Accepting the LGBTQ+ member of the family
• Getting out of the closet: what is like to be an LGBTQ+person in a conservative family?
• Loss of a family member: stages of grief of children and adults. How to cope together?
• Religious conflicts in families: what to do and how to solve?
• Teenage delinquency: when it turns to be more than natural seeking independence?
• Fostering a child: what problems can the parents face?
• Generation gap. The difference in morals and culture. Is it normal?
• Living with senile family members: how to cope and avoid emotional burnout?
• Mentally challenged family members: how to integrate them into society?
• The importance of family support for people with disabilities
• Pregnancy and the first year of having a baby: do tiredness and depression make people bad parents?
• The types of relationship in the family: are they healthy and just unusual or something is harmful to family members?
• Life after disasters: how to put life together again? The importance of family support
• The issue of an older sibling. How to make every kid feel equally loved?
• Gender discrimination in families. Gender roles and expectations
• Multicultural families: how do their values get along?
• Children from previous marriages: how to help them accept the new family?
• Childhood traumas of parents: helping them not to transfer them to the next generation
• Every family can meet a crisis: how to live it through in a civilized way?
• Family counseling: why it is so important?
• Accidentally learned the secrets of the family: how to cope with unpleasant truth?
• Adultery: why it happens and what to do to prevent it?
• Career choice: how to save the relationships with the family and not inherit the family business?
• The transition to adult life: the balance between family support and letting the young adult try living their own life
• Unwanted activities: shall the family take warning or it is just trendy now?
• Returning of a family member from prison: caution versus unconditional love
• A family member in distress: what can you do to actually help when someone close to you gets in serious troubles?
• The absence of love. What to do if you should love someone but can’t?
• Ageism in families. Are older people always right?
• Terminal diseases and palliative care. How to give your family member a good life?
• Where can seek help the members of the dysfunctional families?

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Research Article

The relationship between family variables and family social problems during the COVID-19 pandemic

Contributed equally to this work with: Saeko Kamoshida, Naoto Nihonmatsu

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Graduate School of Education, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan

Roles Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

Affiliations Graduate School of Education, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan, Research Fellow, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), Tokyo, Japan

Roles Supervision

¶ ‡ These authors also contributed equally to this work

Affiliation Faculty of Comprehensive Welfare, Tohoku Fukushi University, Sendai, Japan

Affiliation Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan

• Saeko Kamoshida, 
• Naoto Nihonmatsu, 
• Gen Takagi, 
• Koubun Wakashima

• Published: June 29, 2022
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0270210
• Reader Comments

This study examined the relationship between variables about family members co-residing during the COVID-19 pandemic and anxiety about COVID-19, domestic violence from spouse, child abuse anxiety, internet addiction, and mental health as social problems related to the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 220 parents (70 male and 150 female, age; M = 41.6, SD = 34.4) were included in the analysis. Stepwise hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted with dependent variables of fear of COVID-19, spousal violence, anxiety regarding perpetrating child abuse, internet addiction, and mental health. The independent variables were basic variables related to family members such as family composition. The results demonstrated that parents with preschool children were anxious about the possibility that they might abuse their children ( β = .203, p < .01). Subjects who smoked were associated with anxiety about being the victim of domestic violence by their spouse ( β = .154, p < .05). Those whose income had decreased due to the COVID-19 pandemic, those who were employed, and those with few rooms in their house were more likely to be dependent on the Internet (in order, β = .189, p < .01; β = .196, p < .01; β = -.140, p < .05). Finally, mental health was impaired among those whose income was reduced by the COVID-19 pandemic ( β = .134, p < .05) and among those who had conflicting opinions in their families regarding the pandemic ( β = .206, p < .01). These results indicate that family variables are associated with family social problems. Additionally, we assume these have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. While further research is required to determine the causal relationships among the variables, the findings can be used as an indicator of support that should be provided to families.

Citation: Kamoshida S, Nihonmatsu N, Takagi G, Wakashima K (2022) The relationship between family variables and family social problems during the COVID-19 pandemic. PLoS ONE 17(6): e0270210. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0270210

Editor: Prabhat Mittal, Satyawati College (Eve.), University of Delhi, INDIA

Received: January 20, 2022; Accepted: June 4, 2022; Published: June 29, 2022

Copyright: © 2022 Kamoshida et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting information files.

Funding: The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

The world is in the midst of a pandemic due to the spread of a new coronavirus (hereafter referred to as COVID-19). In addition to medical measures, the Japanese government has limited the flow of people in and out of cities, regions, and in some cases, countries, by locking down cities, introducing remote work systems such that only necessary employees can be physically present in the workplace, and closing schools. As a result, most people have faced some form of restriction of movement for over two years. As this has led people to spend more time with their families, family related problems have increased. Specifically, social trends include increases in child abuse, Internet addiction, problems related to nursing care [ 1 – 3 ], consultations regarding domestic violence and divorce [ 4 ], and suicide rates [ 5 ].

In Japan, there have not been many psychological studies focusing on social trends and the effects of COVID-19. However, if foreign studies are included, such as restrictions on going out and remote work due [ 6 – 8 ], anxiety and coping [ 9 – 11 ], and discrimination against infected people [ 12 ], fluctuation in intra-family communication and its association with preventive behavior [ 13 – 15 ], and children who spend more time looking at screens and less time exercising [ 16 – 18 ]. Several studies have shown that frequent intrafamily communication and parents telling their children about the risk of the virus may promote preventive behaviors within the family [ 14 , 15 ]. In one other study, parents of elementary school-aged children reported increases in irregular sleep, disordered eating habits, and use of games and smartphones among their children during the COVID-19 pandemic, Especially, disordered eating habits were related to stress responses such as psychosomatic symptom, depression and anxiety, anger, lacking energy [ 16 ].

Thus, COVID-19 social problems such as domestic violence, anxiety, and Internet addiction have not been examined. In the international literature focusing on these social trends, based on past experiences with SARS-CoV-2, Ebola, hurricanes, and water disasters, Usher et al. [ 19 ] argue incidentally that violence against women and children increases during disasters. According to Madanes and Madanes [ 20 ], problems such as economic deprivation, sexual problems, domestic violence, and abuse in the family are interrelated as deviations from the rules lead to other deviations, which can lead to a variety of problems. However, while previous studies have illustrated the impact of COVID-19 on families from various aspects, they have not examined the social trends of domestic violence, child abuse, and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic.

To address the limitations, we need to include not only macro variables such as housing and economic conditions, but also various micro variables within the family, such as number of household members, family composition, time spent together, and number of rooms in the house, and their impact on social issues. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between variables about family members co-residing during the COVID-19 pandemic and anxiety about COVID-19, domestic violence and child abuse, Internet addiction, and mental health.

Materials and methods

This study was conducted in October 2021. In Japan, the average weekly number of patients infected with COVID-19 in early October 2021 was 1,810. The infection rate had decreased from the average weekly rate of 23,149 in August 2021, at the time of the fifth wave of the pandemic in Japan. The declaration of the state of emergency was subsequently lifted in October 2021 [ 21 ].

Of 234 parents with children (74 males and 160 females, age; M = 41.7, SD = 34.3), a total of 220 (70 males, 150 females; M = 41.6, SD = 34.4) were included in the analysis, after excluding two participants whose data were rated as of low quality according to Masuda’s operation check [ 22 ], which assesses whether participants read statements correctly.

The first author administered the questionnaire through a web-based survey company that targets for all Japanese people. Potential participants were informed that they were free to answer or not answer the questions as they wished, how personal information would be managed, and that referral to a consultation service was available for psychological problems arising from participation; participants who provided informed consent were recruited into the study.

Variables related to the study participants and their families, such as gender and age, were set as the key variables. These data consisted of sex; age; nationality; prefecture of residence; city, town or village of residence; smoking history; presence of respiratory disease currently being treated; disease other than respiratory disease currently being treated; mental disease currently being treated (anxiety disorder, depression, none, other); name of disease other than respiratory disease and mental disease currently being treated; occupation presence or lack thereof; and increase or decrease in income during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Family information collected included presence or absence of co-residence with family, number of family members, time spent with family members, number of rooms in the home, presence of older adults in the family, presence of pregnant women in the family, presence of preschool children in the family, presence of persons with respiratory diseases in the family, family members who were health care workers, presence of persons infected with COVID-19 including those previously infected, presence of unvaccinated persons, and presence of conflicting opinions about COVID-19 in the family.

Anxiety about COVID-19 was measured using the Fear of COVID-19 Scale—Japanese Version (FCV-19S-J) [ 9 ], which contains seven items, each of which is rated five-point scale. Frequency of domestic violence was measured using the Violence Against Women’s Screen [ 23 ], which consists of seven items presented in a three-part format, with a cutoff score of nine points denoting serious violence. Each item starts with “Your partner is” so that it can be used regardless of gender. Anxiety about perpetrating child abuse was measured using the Child Abuse Anxiety Scale [ 24 ], which comprises of 17 items and four methods regarding abuse anxiety, such as “I feel that I will eventually become very violent toward my children” and “I worry that others will think that I am also abusive.” The Japanese version of the Internet Addiction Test [ 25 ], which is based on a translation of Young’s (1996) Internet addiction test (IAT), was used to measure Internet addiction [ 26 ]. Mental health status was examined using the K6 [ 27 ], a 6-item, 5-point scale.

The first section of the survey stated its purpose. It also stated that participation was voluntary, the survey was anonymous, and personal information would not be disclosed to third parties. Only those who agreed to participate in the survey were able to complete the questionnaire. Additionally, The Tohoku University Graduate School of Education’s Ethics Committee granted ethical approval for this study (ID: 21-1-032).

IBM SPSS Statistics 28 was used for the statistical analysis. Ten basic dummy variables were created to classify participants as female, with a history of smoking, with diseases other than respiratory disease, with preschool children, a health care worker, infected or previously infected with coronavirus, employed, having lost income during the pandemic period, being vaccinated against COVID-19, and with presence of family conflict. The six variables with extremely skewed frequencies were excluded from the analysis, namely presence of respiratory disease, presence of mental illness, presence of older adult, presence of pregnant woman, presence of person, infected or previously infected with COVID-19, and presence of family member with respiratory disease. Composite scores were used in accordance with previous studies for the FCV-19S [ 9 ], the Violence Against Women Screen [ 23 ], the Child Abuse Anxiety Scale [ 24 ], and the Japanese version of the Internet Addiction Test [ 25 ], and the K6 [ 27 ]. Hierarchical stepwise multiple regression analysis was then conducted with each of five composite scores as the dependent variables in separate analyses with and the independent variables consisting of the basic variables. In Step 2, seven basic variables related to family members were introduced sequentially: number of people living together, shared time, number of rooms, presence or absence of preschool children, presence or absence of medical personnel, presence or absence of vaccinees, and presence or absence of family conflicts related to COVID-19.

The frequency distribution of the basic variables pertaining to the participants in this study is presented in Table 1 . Less than 10% of participants reported a positive response for six variables (presence of respiratory diseases, presence of psychiatric diseases, presence of older adults, presence of pregnant women, presence of persons currently or previously infected with COVID-19, and presence of family members with respiratory diseases). The descriptive statistics for each scale are illustrated in Table 2 .

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A hierarchical multiple regression analysis did not identify a significantly predictive model for the FCV-19S J scores. However, the analysis of the violence against women screening scores led to significant R 2 value with a significant smoking ( R 2 = .019, β = .154,95CI = 0.12–1.57, p < .05). That is, being a smoker was associated with the perceived risk of being subjected to domestic violence. Among the 54 participants who reported smoking, 28 were male and 26 were female. Having a preschooler was also associated with anxiety that parents might abuse their children ( R 2 = .037, β = .203, 95CI = 1.34–6.20, p < .01).

For the Internet addiction test ( Table 3 ), the variance explained for step 3 was the highest; the R 2 value was significant, as was its increment from step 2 was also significant ( ⊿R 2 = .019, p < .05). Internet addiction was associated with decreased income following the pandemic ( β = .196, p < .01), being employed ( β = .189, p < .01), and living in a home with fewer rooms ( β = -.140, p < .05).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0270210.t003

These results indicate that persons whose income decreased versus before the pandemic and those who were employed were more likely to report Internet addiction, while those with more rooms in their house were less likely to report Internet addiction. Note that most of the unemployed persons were women.

Table 4 shows that the coefficient of determination of step 2 of the model for K6 scores was the highest; the R 2 value was significant, as was its the increment from step 1 ( ΔR 2 = .042, p < .01). Larger K6 scores were associated with decreased income following the pandemic ( β = .134, p < .05) and the presence of family conflict regarding COVID-19 ( β = .206, p < .01).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0270210.t004

This study, we examined the relationship between variables about family members co-residing during the COVID-19 pandemic and anxiety about COVID-19, domestic violenceanxiety regarding perpetrating child abuse, Internet addiction, and mental health. First, Individual and family variables such as occupation and the family member living together did not affect anxiety regarding COVID-19. This may be because that the public has become accustomed to the lifestyle caused by the pandemic. A longitudinal study of infection anxiety [ 28 ] demonstrated that infection anxiety was highest in December 2020, when the number of newly infected people increased rapidly as part of the third wave in Japan, but decreased in March 2021, when the number of newly infected people decreased. In response to these results, it has been suggested that the weakening of infection anxiety may be due to habituation to the COVID-19 pandemic, such as habituation to infection prevention measures, along with a decrease in crisis awareness after the period of high infection spread. Therefore, it is possible that no difference in infection anxiety was not significantly associated with any study variables because the survey was conducted during a period of decreased infections in Japan.

Being a smoker was associated with the perceived risk of being subjected to domestic violence. Smoking has been associated with severe respiratory failure due to COVID 19 [ 29 ]. Many smokers are aware of the risk [ 30 ]. Furthermore, smoking has been criticized by the public because it often occurs in crowded situations, in enclosed spaces, with unmasked persons [ 31 ]. Thus the public may be more nervous about smoking than before the spread of COVID-19 for three reason: first, smokers are more likely to be in close contact with others when using smoking areas; second, they are more likely than non-smokers to bring COVID-19 into the home; and third, passive smoking increases the risk of serious illness if a family member is infected with COVID-19. That is, smoking can cause marital conflict, which may lead to verbal abuse and violence in some cases. The location of the respondents’ smoking areas was also not disclosed; thus, it is unclear whether smoking is actually a trigger for family conflicts.

Having a preschooler was also associated with anxiety that parents might abuse their children. The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare of Japan has indicated summarized that 43.5% of abused children are under six years old [ 32 , 33 ]. Mothers with children between newborn and preschool age were also the highest percentage of respondents (62.3%) who stated that discipline was a factor in child-rearing anxiety. A survey of mothers of infants and toddlers [ 34 ] demonstrated that there are conflicts in child rearing, such as regarding what constitutes good and bad discipline. We speculate that these conflicts may become more pronounced during the preschool years when child rearing is difficult; for this reason, the rate of abuse directed toward preschoolers is relatively high. It is highly likely that this is a general tendency, not simply an effect of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It was suggested that Internet addiction may occur among those who are currently working, those who have a lost income due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and those with fewer rooms in their house. First, it has been indicated that there is a relationship between Internet addiction and the presence or absence of interference with social life [ 35 – 37 ]. However, the opposite results were found in the current study, as being employed was associated with higher Internet addiction scores. This may be because the social life of due to some people is not hindered by unemployment (e.g., homemakers and students). For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, being unemployed may reduce the risk of Internet addiction interfering with social life because issues with interpersonal relationships and activity may be alleviated by virtual contact (e.g., video chat).

It was also found that reduced income was associated with increased Internet addiction. However, it is necessary to consider indirect effects when interpreting the relationship between economic variables, such as income, and psychological variables. A survey by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan reported that the percentage of Internet users in households with an annual household income of 4 million yen or more exceeded 80% [ 38 ]. That is, a possible mechanism is that wealthier households simply own more smartphones and computers and have greater Internet access, which leads their addiction scores to appear higher. In contrast, during the COVID-19 pandemic, adolescents of lower socioeconomic status are at higher risk of problematic Internet use than are those of wealthier socioeconomic status [ 39 ]. Taking all of these factors into consideration, loss of income due to reduced work hours following the COVID-19 pandemic is a leading risk factor for Internet addiction or hikikomori.

Finally, it was demonstrated that having fewer rooms at home was associated with increased Internet addiction scores. With respect to this result, rather than considering the relationship between housing type and individual Internet addiction, it is necessary to consider attributes factors such as economic status as a third variable. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan, the percentage of persons who rent accommodations is greatest among in their 20s, and the percentage of persons in owner-occupied houses increases among those aged 30 years older [ 40 ]. That is, it is likely, if we assume that the number of rooms at home increases with age, income, and other social status, which is consistent with previous studies [ 41 , 42 ] that illustrate Internet addiction is serious among young people. Additionally, if the number of rooms is large, Internet use was controlled to some extent by their roommates’ lives. However, no association between age and IAT was found in the data of this study. The reason may be that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the increase in time spent at home and working from home. Therefore, we believe that this is because the rate of Internet use increased equally regardless of age.

Next, it was suggested that mental health may have been impaired among persons whose income had decreased following the COVID-19 pandemic and among whose family members had conflicting opinions regarding COVID-19. Decrease income typically reduces the standard of living and may increase the difficulty of maintaining adequate health. Bosako and Hoshi suggested that the amount of income may mediate the sense of happiness and life satisfaction and contribute to subjective health [ 43 ]. Thus, there is a clear relationship between living standards and health based on income. However, as the current data were not panel data, it is possible that the causal relationship may be reversed, such as a decrease in income due to poor mental health. Regarding conflicts among family members, there may be differences in awareness of the need for COVID-19 infection prevention among different age groups and educational levels, as well as differences in awareness of the need for vaccines. For example, study have shown that parents and their children are often divided on the pros and cons of vaccination [ 44 , 45 ]. Furthermore, Yigit et al. [ 45 ] reported differences according to gender and educational level. Therefore, we suggest that individual intentions are strongly reflected in vaccine decision-making, especially in the case of COVID-19. This may easily lead to conflicts within families, such as between couples, generations, and between generations of children. Such conflicts of opinion may increase tension within the family and affect the mental health of individuals.

Limitations

The primary limitation of this study is that it only examined effects at a single point in time; thus, it was not possible to determine causality, namely, whether the effects were caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, it is necessary to carefully examine whether socioeconomic and psychological variables are directly related to each other or indirectly related to each other, such as through mediating variables. Further, some items were excluded from the analysis, such as presence of respiratory disease and presence of mental illness, because they frequency distribution was less than 10% of the total. Additionally, analysis of a single respondent in a household, rather than paired data, does not fully capture the entire picture of the family situation. Finally, Correlations between independent variables were not examined in detail. Therefore, we have not been able to confirm whether the effects are direct or indirect.

Conclusions

This study family variables, such as family composition were found to be associated with family-related social problems during the COVID-19 pandemic. First, parents of preschool children were more likely to be anxious about the possibility of them abusing of their children. Furthermore, smokers were more likely to report perceiving a risk of being a victim of spousal abuse and domestic violence from spouse. Those whose income had also decreased following the COVID-19 pandemic, and those who were employed, and those with few rooms in their houses were more likely to report Internet dependency. Finally, mental health was impaired among those whose income was reduced following the COVID-19 pandemic and among members of families with conflicting opinions about COVID-19.

Although it is difficult to interpret these results as indicating direct causality, the results could help inform risk assessments for family support. For example, the presence of a preschooler or a smoker in the family is an indicator of the risk of violence in the family. Alternatively, assessment of reduced income and differences in attitudes toward COVID-19 in the family may provide options for intervening in cases of mental illness and family problems.

Supporting information

S1 data. anonymized data set..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0270210.s001

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the members of our study team and the participants who took part in our study.

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