Growing Up With Divorced Parents: The Impact of Divorce on the Children

Introduction

Evidence suggests that children of divorced or separated parents have a higher tendency of being diagnosed with affective disorders such as depression, in comparison to children with parents who are still together. However, the effect size of this finding is weak. The reasons that make these children prone in the first place could help explain this but there is a gap in literature exploring this topic, especially in Australia. Therefore, qualitative research into the feelings and attitudes of young Australians of disintegrated families has the potential to be revealing. This proposal, therefore, asks: how do young Australians feel about their parent’s separation? This question will be answered using the semi-structured interview method to gather data. Themes and latent meanings will be uncovered by content analysis.

In a country where almost half the divorce cases involve children (Australian Institute of Family Studies, 2018), the impact of divorce on children is an important issue to be addressed and the results of this study can help parents, teachers and lawmakers gain a broader perspective on it, and thus possibly contribute to providing more precisely targeted and effective intervention programs for children from such families.

Literature Review

A large scale of quantitative research has been done on this topic. Amato and Keith (1991) conducted a meta-analysis of 92 studies that tested the wellbeing of children from divorced and still together marriages. The study found that parental divorce did have an impact on the child’s wellbeing, with children from separated families scoring significantly lower than the other group in the test. The measure involved components such as psychological adjustment. Amato replicated this in 2001 and found the same conclusion.

This low well-being translates to an increased likelihood of depression. A longitudinal study interviewed 2,819 children at two different points of time and compared their mental health (Strohschein, 2005). As predicted, using content analysis it was found that children from divorced families had significantly higher depression levels than those whose parents were still together (Strohschein, 2005). This influence of parental separation on depression, as one would expect is life threatening and extends into the offspring’s adulthood (Alonza, Thompson, Stohl & Hasin, 2009; Ross & Mirowsky, 1999).

However, in most studies like the one by Ross and Mirowsky (1999), while the influence of separated parents on depression is significant, it is small (Kessler et al., 2010; Ruschena, Prior, Sanson & Smart, 2005; Amato & Keith, 1991). That is, there is a proportion of children that aren’t negatively influenced by the dissolution of their family. This individual difference as Manno, Macdonald, and Knight (2015) argued, indicates that there are other moderating effects that influence the child’s psychopathology towards parental separation. Theorists have developed various theories as an attempt to identify these moderators. The theories tended to focus on the psychology of the child and some of them did have some accuracy to them when tested such as the coping theory, but they have low explanatory power (Warner, Mahoney & Krumrei, 2009). The rest of the theories in the domain had limited research on their applicability or lack there of (Warner, Mahoney & Krumrei, 2009). Thus, the question of what these moderators is unanswered in the research field.

Qualitative nature of research could be useful in identifying these moderators, but there seems to be very limited body qualitative research currently existing. Additionally, even those studies, similar to the majority of qualitative research are based in the US, the impact of parental separation on children’s mental health was unexplored. The cross-cultural validity of research in the past can be questioned as culture differences exist in aspects such as parenting style. For example, Australia’s ‘mateship’ culture can have made it easier for the child to handle the disintegration of the family. 

This research, therefore, aims to explore the Australian youth’s viewpoint and emotions towards their parent’s separation or divorce and to get a better insight on the variables that influence the impact of divorce on offspring’s depression. My research will take a qualitative approach, as it tends to provide a more in-depth understanding as discussed below, which can be beneficial in developing a theory with high explanatory power.

Methodology

Epistemology and Theoretical Perspectives

The overarching theoretical framework this research is based on is constructivism. That is, it is through the subject’s interactions with the world that meaning is constructed, not discovered (Gray,2014). This is appropriate in my research as subjects will vary in emotions and attitudes towards the same phenomenon– parental separation - because of their subjective interactions with it (Gray,2014). In addition, the theoretical perspective taken is interpretivism, the research analyses the social reality of the studied communities by looking at their individual interpretation of the world, using the qualitative method – interviews (Gray, 2014). The semi-structured interview method used will be inductive, with with the insight being gained to possibly form a plausible theory of moderators influencing the small effect size.

Sample, Sampling and Ethics

The target population is Australian high school students of divorced parents. Through purposive sampling method, a total of 150 subjects from that population will be collected. 50 subjects will be gathered from each of the following states: Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland. Collecting samples from the 3 most populated states in Australia while being costly and time-consuming, will increase the reliability of the results found (Worldatlas, 2018). High schools based in these states will be contacted and participants will be sought using the modes of communication already existent; student portals, noticeboards, posters, etc.

To ensure the participant’s view of parental separation is directly based on their own interactions and not influenced by the experiences of those around them, the parents of the participants must be divorced for less than two years. Since previous studies have found that children experiencing parental divorce have higher depression scores when under the age of 16, the sample will be restricted to age 16 and below (Rodger, Power & Hope, 1997). As the participants of this research aren’t of the legal consenting age yet, written informed consent will be taken from at least one parent. And to ensure participant safety, all interviewees shall have a working with children’s check (WWCC).

Semi-Structured Interviews and Ethics

The Interview method aims to directly ask participants how they perceive the issue that is parental separation, giving them a voice to explain their personal view of it, which is what this qualitative research aims to know. More specifically, a semi-structured interview with its open-ended questions allows participants to give at length and in-depth responses, which due to the method’s flexibility can be fully probed and explored by the interviewer (Legard, Keegan & Ward, 2003). This can lead the researcher to unforeseen domains, such as a variable moderating the impact of parental separation on proneness to depression that wasn’t previously known to the research community. The semi-structured format is favoured over the rigidity of a structured interview, as the research isn’t aiming compare but rather to explore new territory.

Methods such as questionnaire and focus groups would be agreeably more time-efficient and cheap, however, they wouldn’t be compatible with this research due to the personal and sensitive nature of the topic. Also, while the focus group method is effective in producing in-depth responses, there always runs the risk of the session being dominated by a few individuals. Which tends to result in a collectivist environment where varying, alternate responses or interpretations are unlikely to be put forward. Different, subjective attitudes towards parental separation are of central importance to this research, which can only be received through one-on-one interviews.

Following Legard, Keegan & Ward’s (2003) interview structure, the interview will begin by drawing upon basic, background questions such as “how long has it been since your parent’s divorce?”. This allows participants the time to get comfortable with the interviewer. The interviewer will then slowly dwell into more personal questions such as “How did you feel when you first found out about your parent’s seperation?”, “Did you have any fears about the divorce?”, “Have you changed since your parent’s divorce? If so, how?”. Some questions will explore the differences in children, “Do you think that you had a role to play in this divorce?”, other will explore their mood “Has your parent’s divorce impacted your stress levels?”.

In order to prevent biases from occurring, such as deference effect, where participant says what they think the researcher wants them to say, the interview will be recorded. No written notes will be taken as it would allow the interviewer to solely focus and probe on the subject’s responses and also ensures that participants can’t receive unintended cues (Legard, Keegan & Ward, 2003). It is critical that the participant feels comfortable and is able to honest about their sensitive or bold opinions, thus the identity of the participants will remain anonymous. Nevertheless, if one of the participants does display concerning levels of psychological distress, they will be further directed to support services.

Content Analysis

Content analysis would be used to thematically examines the data collected and systematically organise them into codes. Through these meaning units i.e. codes, conclusions will be drawn about how young Australians regard parental separation. First, data will be analysed to form categories of themes. The coding scheme is characterised by these themes. For example, depression would obviously one of the themes to be measured and thus the coding scheme would involve the number of times words that indicate negative affect are used in responses. This would provide us an answer to whether Australian children suffer similar psychological distress, and thus proneness to depression as US youth does due to dissolution of family. While there would be pre-conceived categories, analysts can develop themes during the data analysis process. These non-pre-convinced categories could explain the small effect size of the impact.

Then all participants will be coded based on the same coding scheme. This is to refute the subjective nature of the method used and to increase the validity and reliability of the conclusions made. To increase the inter-rater reliability 3 experienced content analysts would code the data and compare their results.

Despite being quite tedious, this is the ideal data analysis method for this research as the semi-structured interviews will lead to large volumes of data collected. Content analysis is widely known for transforming this rich-data into structured, analysable, quantitative representations (Krippendorff, 2013). Discourse analysis isn’t applicable here as the research isn’t concerned with the intention of language, the meaning and power relations in them

Question’s importance

In today’s society, the prevalence of divorce cannot be denied. In 2017, the divorce rate in Australia increased by 5.2%, with 47.1% of divorces involving a child under the age of 18 (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2017; Australian Institute of Family Studies, 2018). As previsusly mentioned, past research has found that increased likelihood of depression, is correlatred with the likelihood of child’s lifetime suicide attempt, increasing the rate by 14% (Strohschein, 2005; Alonza et al., 2009). This highlights that the issue must be immediately addressed, and appropriate help must be provided.

The findings of this research can be useful to various institutes of society. Firstly, parents in Australia will gain awareness of the impact of parental separation on their offspring. This will lead to the aware parents ensuring their offspring is provided with outlets to seek help, such as a therapist. Secondly, as research has found students of divorced parents to be at greater risk of having schooling problems (Chae, 2016), teachers could use the research to gain additional insight into the psychopathy of their students. And help them understand how to make the process easier for the student, for instance, providing them after-school hours teaching. Overall, the findings of this question could help parents and teacher understand how they can make the process easier for the child.

But most importantly, it can contribute to possible alterations in policies regarding divorce. Policymakers could insert prevention programs and intervention strategies, such as compulsory education classes for divorced parents teaching them how they should handle their divorce, in regards to their children. Additionally, if a previous unknown theme is identified in the research, future quantitative studies can further test and study it.

Concluding Words

To summarise, by conducting this research we answer the question: how do young Australians view their parent’s divorce? Which answers important questions about how influential is divorce on the depression levels of young adolescents and are there any mediators in this association. The research proposal explains why and how a semi-structured interview method will be used to gain rich, in-depth insight into the perspective of the offspring. And how content analysis would be used to turn that qualitative date into replicable and systematic categories. This qualitative research, with the funds and support of Australian Research Council, can provide findings that can inform the parenting, teaching style and the law which can prevent children from predisposition to various issues and potentially reduce their risk of lifetime suicide.