What is the Impact of Parental Divorce on the Life Course Outcomes of Children in Canada? Valerie Martin*, Melinda Mills** and Céline Le Bourdais* * Centre interuniversitaire d’études démographiques, Institut national de la recherche scientifique. Montréal ** Department of Social-Cultural Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam CPS, June 6, 2004, Winnipeg

Social Structure Changes and Family Formation Changes Social structure changes lead to new personal demands Changing family formation behaviour New requirements for satisfaction in marriage New contraceptive methods Female employment Flexibility in the labour market Childbearing can be planned Premarital sexual behaviour Women are more able to leave an unhappy marriage New forms of unions exist  Divorce rates increase  Common-law become popular  Marriage rates fall

Transition Rate to Divorce in Quebec and Canada Duration of first marriage in years Duration of the marriage in years CUMULATEDPERCENTCUMULATEDPERCENT born before 1945 born after 1945 born before 1945 born after 1945 CUMULATEDPERCENTCUMULATEDPERCENT Divorce Rates increase over Time in Quebec and Canada 1. Survivor Function of Divorce Quebec2. Survivor Function of Divorce Canada

What happens to Children of Parental Divorce when they Form a Union and a Family?

What happens to Children of Parental Divorce in the Union and Family Formation Processes? The Intergenerational Transmission of Divorce Stress Theory Socialisation Theory Economic Deprivation Theory

Stress Theory Main assumptions Divorce leads to instability in the family system Divorce is a push factor for earlier adult role taking HYPOTHESES 1.Young women experiencing a parental divorce have a higher risk to give premarital birth than those coming from intact families 2.Children of divorce tend to marry before the age of 25

Socialisation Theory Main assumptions Parental divorce influences the role modelling process Children of divorced parents are unlikely to make a long-term commitment Divorce exists as a possibility to end up an unhappy marriage HYPOTHESES 1. The transition rate to marry compared to the transition rate to cohabit is lower for children of divorce than for those coming from intact families 2. Children of divorce are more likely to experience their marital dissolution compared to childern coming from intact families, this controlling for orphans

Economic Deprivation Theory Main assumptions Relationship between divorce and educational attainment Children of divorce grow up with less financial support Single parents may have less time and money for their children HYPOTHESIS 1. Children of divorce will have an overall lower educational attainment than those coming from intact families

Data General Social Survey, cycle 10 (the family) Retrospective survey with complete reproductive and conjugal histories 10,749 respondents aged 15 years and over

Methods Event history analysis Life table approach and Cox regression Transitions Marriage/cohabitation, divorce, birth of a child Variables Education, Quebec / rest of Canada, religion

Results of Stress Theory Premarital birth Parents divorced (Ref: parents not divorced) 0.34** Less than High School Education (Ref: High School) 0.21* Post Secondary Education (Ref: High School) 0.14 University Degree (Ref: High School) -0.1 Quebec (Ref: Rest of Canada) -0.48** Catholic (Ref: no religion) Protestant (Ref: no religion) -0.1 Other religion (Ref: no religion) Parental divorce lead to premarital birth (as expected) * Significant level   5 %; ** Significant level   1% ; *** Significant level   0.1% Number of episodes: 4843 Log-likelihood of exponential null model: Maximum of log likelihood:

2. Parental divorce has no impact on younger age at marriage (unexpected) However The lower the educational attainment the higher the risk for young age at marriage (Univ. : -0.4 *** compared to Less than High School 0,14***) Quebec has a lower transition rate to marry (-0.21 ***) Results of Stress Theory

Results of Socialisation Theory 1. Children of divorce are more likely to cohabit than to marry (expected) Higher risk of cohabitation with a higher educational attainment (0.2**) Belonging to a religious group increases the willingness to marry (0.29***) 2. Parental divorce has an impact on the risk of divorce (expected) Higher the risk to divorce with a high education (Univ.: 0.16 *) Belonging to a religious group decreases the risk to divorce (-0.27**)

Conclusions Parental divorce has an impact on the processes of union and family formation and dissolution among the offspring The theory of the intergenerational transmission of divorce Socialisation theory is the most successful theory in accounting for the behaviours observed Future Research What will happen with the rising number of broken families? The case of step - families