Does the Timing of Parental Divorce or Separation Impact Adolescent and Young Adult Mental Health Differently by Gender?

Abstract

Mental health issues are increasing in prevalence, particularly in children and adolescents. Many studies have linked parental divorce and separation to poor mental health outcomes among children, but findings are mixed about whether the timing of divorce or separation matters and whether this impact varies by gender.We use pooled OLS with correlated random effects to analyse the relationship between parental divorce occurring prior to or during adolescence on GHQ-12 mental health scores at ages 15, 17, and 25. We use data on 5,155 males and 4,960 females from the longitudinal Next Steps study from England.We find a clear difference by gender in the impact of the timing of parental divorce/separation on mental health. Parental divorce/separation occurring in childhood and early adolescence negatively impacts female mental health at age 15 but not at ages 17 and 25. We find no consistent relationship between parental divorce/separation and male mental health. When using alcohol consumption as an alternative outcome, we find the same pattern of results for females, and find that parental divorce before 15 is associated with increased alcohol consumption at age 15 in males, but reduced consumption at age 25. Results remain robust when controlling for omitted variable bias. Our findings suggest there is scope for targeted mental health interventions in adolescence, by gender, to mitigate potential impacts of parental divorce and separation.

Keywords: Mental Health, Parental divorce, Adolescence, Early adulthood, Gender, Timing of divorce