Understanding the Temporal Effects of Divorce on Youth Behaviors

描述（由申请人提供）：大量文献研究了与离婚相关的儿童的负面结果。然而，大多数研究都将离婚视为一个静态事件，而不是一个动态事件，可能包括离婚前多年的冲突。因此，很少有研究探讨离婚的时间影响，即，离婚过程在离婚前几年、离婚时以及离婚后一段时间内对儿童的影响。我们的目标是在拟议的工作是（1）检查这些时间效应的离婚对儿童的问题行为（例如，多动）和青少年的结果和危险行为（物质使用，犯罪，性行为和生育相关的结果）;（2）检查性别，年龄和离婚前父母冲突是否缓和离婚的负面影响。后一个调节因素可以提供关于来自高冲突家庭的儿童是否实际上从离婚中受益的信息。我们将研究伴随NLSY-79的儿童和青少年调查中的儿童，并研究1997年NLSY（NLSY-97）的青少年。大多数关于父母离婚对子女影响的研究都基于这样一个假设，即离婚在家庭中是随机的。但是，许多研究表明，几年后离婚的家庭与保持完整的家庭不同。一些研究使用固定效应模型来解决这种异质性问题，这种异质性可能混淆了离婚与子女结局之间的关系。然而，这些固定效应研究并没有捕捉到离婚的全部影响，因为基线测量可能已经捕捉到了离婚过程的大部分影响（例如，家庭矛盾导致离婚）。关于离婚的时间影响的少数研究更接近于捕捉离婚的全部影响，但是，他们没有控制决定哪些家庭离婚的未观察到的异质性。我们将联合收割机结合这两种型号的优点。特别是，我们将通过将样本限制在经历离婚的家庭的孩子（如固定效应研究）来解决未观察到的异质性问题。这改变了必要的假设，从“离婚是随机的家庭”到“离婚的时间是随机的家庭经历离婚。“我们甚至可以利用小组调查来估计具有个体固定效应的模型，从而消除对这种新假设的需要。为了捕捉离婚的全部影响，我们使用离婚前3到5年的参考期来分析青少年，使用离婚前10到16年的参考期来分析儿童。拟议的工作应有助于研究界了解父母离婚的时间影响。特别是，研究将表明离婚前孩子可能会受到影响的早期程度，离婚前后负面影响的增加程度，以及离婚影响是否会随着时间的推移而消退或持续。此外，这项研究可能会为高冲突家庭的孩子在父母离婚或呆在一起时是否表现得更好提供信息。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A significant amount of literature has examined negative outcomes for children associated with divorce. However, most research has treated divorce as a static event rather a dynamic event that may include years of conflict preceding the divorce. Thus, little research has examined the temporal effects of divorce-i.e., how the divorce process affects children in the years leading up to the divorce, at the time of the divorce, and over time after the divorce. Our objectives in the proposed work are to (1) examine these temporal effects of divorce on children's problem behavior (e.g., hyperactivity) and on teenagers' outcomes and risky behaviors (substance use, delinquency, sexual behavior, and fertility-related outcomes); and (2) examine whether gender, age, and pre-divorce parental conflict moderate the negative effects of divorce. The latter moderating factor can be informative on whether children from high-conflict families actually benefit from divorce. We will examine children from the Child and Young Adult Survey that accompanied the NLSY-79, and we examine teenagers from the NLSY of 1997 (NLSY-97). Most studies on the effects of parental divorce on children rely on the assumption that divorce is random across families. But, much research has shown that families that will divorce years later are different from families that will remain intact. A few studies use fixed-effects models to address this problem of heterogeneity possibly confounding the relationship between divorce and children's outcomes. However, these fixed-effect studies are not capturing the full effect of divorce, as the baseline measure may already capture much of the effect of the divorce process (e.g., the family conflict leading to the divorce). The few studies on the temporal effects of divorce are closer to capturing the full effects of divorce, but, they do not control for unobserved heterogeneity determining which families divorce. We will combine the positive features of these two types of models. In particular, we will address the unobserved heterogeneity issue by restricting the sample to children of families that experience a divorce (as the fixed-effect studies do). This changes the necessary assumption from "divorce is random across families" to "the timing of the divorce is random across families that experience a divorce." We can even eliminate the need for this new assumption by taking advantage of the panel surveys to estimate models with individual fixed effects. And to capture the full effects of divorce, we use a reference periods that is 3 to 5 years prior to the divorce for the analysis of teenagers and one that is 10 to 16 years prior to the divorce for the children's analysis. The proposed work should help the research community understand the temporal effects of parental divorce. In particular, the research will indicate how early before divorces kids may be impacted, how much the negative effects increase around the time of the divorce, and whether the divorce effects subside or persist over time. In addition, the research may be informative for whether children in high-conflict families do better with their parents divorcing or staying together.