Journal of Family Psychology2001, Vol. 15, No. 3, 355-370

Copyright 2001 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.0893-320O/01/S5.OO DOI: 1O.1O37//O893-320O.15.3.355

Children of Divorce in the 1990s: An Update of theAmato and Keith (1991) Meta-Analysis

Paul R. AmatoThe Pennsylvania State University

The present study updates the P. R. Amato and B. Keith (1991) meta-analysis ofchildren and divorce with a new analysis of 67 studies published in the 1990s.Compared with children with continuously married parents, children with divorcedparents continued to score significantly lower on measures of academic achieve-ment, conduct, psychological adjustment, self-concept, and social relations. Aftercontrolling for study characteristics, curvilinear trends with respect to decade ofpublication were present for academic achievement, psychological well-being,self-concept, and social relations. For these outcomes, the gap between childrenwith divorced and married parents decreased during the 1980s and increased againduring the 1990s.

Interest in the effects of divorce on childrenremains strong among researchers, practitio-ners, policy makers, and the general public.This interest is a consequence of the continuinghigh divorce rate. Although after 1980 the di-vorce rate in the United States declined slightly,recent projections indicate that between 40%and 50% of first marriages contracted in the1990s will end in divorce (Schoen & Standish,2000). During the last decade, over one millionchildren experienced parental divorce everyyear (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1999).

In 1991, Amato and Keith published a meta-analysis of 92 studies that compared childrenresiding with divorced and continuously mar-ried parents. Their analysis, based on studiesconducted in the 1950s through the 1980s, in-dicated that children with divorced parentsscored significantly lower on a variety of indi-cators of well-being, including measures of ac-ademic achievement, conduct, psychologicaladjustment, self-concept, social relations, and

I thank Alan Booth and Robert Emery for helpfulcomments on a draft of this article and Stacy Rogersfor assistance with the reliability analysis.

Correspondence concerning this article should beaddressed to Paul R. Amato, Department of Sociol-ogy, The Pennsylvania State University, 211 OswaldTower, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802-6207.Electronic mail may be sent to pxa6@psu.edu.

the quality of relationships with mothers andfathers. The mean effect sizes tended to bemodest, however, ranging from - .26 forfather-child relationships to - .08 for psy-chological adjustment. The results of thismeta-analysis provided a benchmark that sub-sequent researchers have used to evaluate themagnitude of effect sizes generated in theirown research. A computer search of the So-cial Science Citation Index indicates that theAmato and Keith meta-analysis has been citedover 250 times.

The purpose of the present study is to updatethe Amato and Keith (1991) meta-analysis, witha focus on studies published in the 1990s. Oneof the more intriguing findings reported byAmato and Keith was a shift in the magnitude ofeffect sizes over time. In particular, effect sizesfor academic achievement, conduct, self-concept, and mother—child relations were sig-nificantly lower in studies conducted in morerecent decades (the 1970s and 1980s) than inearlier decades (the 1950s and 1960s). AsAmato and Keith concluded, "These resultssuggest that the implications of parental divorcefor children's well-being have become less pro-nounced since the 1950s and 1960s" (p. 34). Bycalculating effect sizes for studies published inthe 1990s, it is possible to see if the gap inwell-being between children with divorced andcontinuously married parents has continued tochange during the last 10 years. Good reasons

355

356 AMATO

exist for suspecting that such a shift hasoccurred.

Changes in Effect Sizes AssociatedWith Divorce

Effect sizes in the scientific literature on chil-dren and divorce may be declining because ofthe manner in which research is conducted.Amato and Keith (1991) found that more meth-odologically sophisticated studies tended toyield weaker effect sizes. Depending on theoutcome, weaker effect sizes appeared instudies that used randomly selected (rather thanconvenience) samples, larger (rather thansmaller) samples, multiple-item (rather thansingle-item) measures of outcomes, and multi-variate (rather than bivariate) analyses. A ten-dency for methodologically strong studies toyield relatively modest effect sizes may exist forseveral reasons. One explanation refers to thefact that large samples have greater statisticalpower than smaller samples and, hence, arebetter able to detect the significance of weakeffects in the population. For this reason, theresults of large-sample studies (with relativelyweak but significant findings) are more likely tofind their way into the published literature.More generally, methodologically sophisticatedstudies have a good chance of being acceptedfor publication, even if they report null results.In contrast, methodologically simple studies areunlikely to be published unless they show espe-cially strong (and hence convincing) results.This tendency would result in a trend amongpublished studies for the most sophisticatedstudies to report the weakest group differences.

Studies of children and divorce conducted inthe 1990s were more sophisticated than studiesconducted in earlier decades, including the1980s. For example, in the 1990s, researchersincreasingly turned to national, longitudinaldata sets such as the National LongitudinalStudy of Youth (Emery, Waldron, Kitzmann, &Aaron, 1999), the National Study of Familiesand Households (Hanson, 1999), the HighSchool and Beyond Study (Astone & McLana-han, 1991), and the British National Longitudi-nal Study (Cherlin et al., 1991). Other research-ers published reports based on smaller, but moreintensively studied, longitudinal samples (Heth-erington & Clingempeel, 1992). The availabil-ity of prospective data made it possible to con-trol for a variety of predisruption factors that

may be causes of parental divorce as well aschild outcomes, such as parents' predivorce in-come (McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994), parents'antisocial personality (Simons, 1996), and par-ents' marital conflict (Forehand, Neighbors, De-vine, & Armistead, 1994). Other researcherswere able to examine children's postdivorcebehavior problems by controlling for children'sbehavior problems prior to parental separation(Morrison & Cherlin, 1995). It is probable thatthese methodological advances resulted in fur-ther declines in the published effect sizes asso-ciated with marital disruption in the 1990s.

In addition to methodological advances, it ispossible that effect sizes in this literature de-clined in the 1990s because the effects of di-vorce on children have become weaker. As mar-ital dissolution has become more common,people's attitudes toward divorce have becomemore accepting (Thornton, 1985). Conse-quently, children with divorced parents mayfeel less stigmatized now than in earlier de-cades. Moreover, therapeutic interventions forchildren of divorce have become common dur-ing the last two decades. Programs in schoolsettings have been shown to improve the func-tioning of children following marital disruption(Pedro-Carroll & Alpert-Gillis, 1997; Stolberg& Mahler, 1994). In addition, parenting coursesare now widely available (and sometimes man-datory) for divorcing parents. Although it is notclear whether these courses directly benefit chil-dren, parents generally view them favorably(Emery, Kitzmann, & Waldron, 1999). Withrespect to the legal system, mediation for di-vorcing parents in contested cases is available inmost states and mandatory in some. Mediation,compared with more adversarial procedures, re-sults in better compliance by parents with agree-ments, more parental satisfaction (especiallyamong fathers), and less conflict and more co-operation in coparenting following separation(Emery, Kitzmann, & Waldron, 1999). Takentogether, the increasing availability of school-based interventions, parenting programs, anddivorce mediation may have lowered theamount of stress experienced by children fol-lowing parental separation. If this is true, thenthe gap in well-being between children withdivorced and continuously married parents islikely to have declined during the last decade.

Although good reasons exist for hypothesiz-ing a continuing decline in effect sizes, other

CHILDREN OF DIVORCE 357

considerations lead to a different conclusion.Recent longitudinal research indicates that theeffects of divorce on children vary with thelevel of discord between parents prior to maritaldisruption. On the one hand, when marital con-flict is overt, intense, chronic, and unresolved,children appear to be better off in the long runif the marriage ends than if parents remain to-gether. On the other hand, when parents engagein relatively little overt conflict, children appearto be worse off following divorce (Amato, Loo-mis, & Booth, 1995; Hanson, 1999; Jekielek,1998; Morrison & Coiro, 1999). Under thesecircumstances, children are likely to view pa-rental separation as an unexpected and inexpli-cable event that sets into motion a series ofstressful transitions (declines in household in-come, loss of contact with one parent, movingto a new neighborhood) with few or no com-pensating advantages.

This phenomenon has implications for chil-dren if the average level of discord prior tomarital dissolution is changing. In earlier de-cades, legal procedures for obtaining a divorcewere difficult and costly, and public attitudestoward divorce were condemnatory. Conse-quently, it is likely that only the most dysfunc-tional and troubled marriages ended in volun-tary disruption. To the extent that it removedchildren from a hostile home environment,many of these divorces would have benefitedchildren in the long ran. But with the introduc-tion of no-fault divorce, the softening of publicattitudes toward divorce, and the dramaticgrowth in the number of divorcing couples, it islikely that the threshold of marital unhappinessnecessary to trigger a divorce has declined. Thischange would mean that an increasing numberof divorces are preceded by a modest, ratherthan a severe, level of discord. Indeed, longitu-dinal evidence indicates that a majority of re-cent divorces are not preceded by an extendedperiod of overt and intense marital conflict(Amato & Booth, 1997). Some observers haveargued that people often terminate their mar-riages these days for reasons that have more todo with "personal growth" than escaping from adestructive relationship (Booth, 1999; Glenn,1996). Consequently, the type of disruptionsthat children find especially distressing mayrepresent an increasing proportion of all di-vorces. Little direct evidence is available tosupport (or refute) the notion that divorces are

increasingly occurring in low-discord mar-riages. But if this reasoning is correct, then thedecline in effect sizes prior to 1990, as noted inAmato and Keith (1991), may have sloweddown or even reversed during the last decade.

Another line of reasoning suggests that thegap in well-being between children with di-vorced and continuously married parents maybe expanding, not because divorce is becomingmore problematic for children, but because liv-ing with married parents is becoming more ad-vantageous. During the 1990s, the U.S. econ-omy expanded, unemployment declined, thepercentage of wives and mothers in the laborforce increased, and wages rose—especially forwomen (White & Rogers, 2000). The benefits ofeconomic growth, however, were not distrib-uted equally among families. The family groupthat experienced the largest rise in income dur-ing the 1990s consisted of married couples withboth spouses in the paid labor force. In contrast,single-parent families experienced a deteriora-tion in economic resources during the 1990s(U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1999, Tables 749,751, 754, and 757). Given that family incomepredicts a number of positive outcomes amongchildren (Duncan & Brooks-Gunn, 1997), chil-dren with married parents may have "pulledfurther ahead" of children with divorced parentsduring the 1990s.

Contribution of the Present Study

Several perspectives suggest that the averageobserved difference between children with di-vorced and continuously married parents mayhave shifted during the 1990s, because of eitherthe growing methodological sophistication ofstudies, the increased acceptance of marital dis-solution, the spread of therapeutic and legalinterventions for divorcing families, a decline inthe level of marital discord that precedes paren-tal separation, or growing economic inequalitybetween children in single-parent and two-parent families. A meta-analysis of studies con-ducted in the 1990s, and a comparison of theseresults with the findings of earlier research, isnecessary to determine the existence and natureof such a shift.

In the present study, I update the Amato andKeith (1991) meta-analysis to achieve threegoals. First, I test the hypotheses that averagedifferences in outcomes between children withdivorced and continuously married parents have

358 AMATO

changed (either decreased or increased) sincethe 1980s. To accomplish this task, I calculateeffect sizes for various child outcomes fromstudies published in the 1990s and comparethese with effect sizes calculated from studiespublished in earlier decades. Second, I considerhow methodological characteristics of studiesmay have affected effect sizes in the 1990s, aswell as in earlier decades. And third, becausegender and age differences are of perennial in-terest in this literature, I consider how effectsizes in the 1990s varied with children's genderand age.

Method

In general, the methods used in the analysis ofstudies from the 1990s were identical to those re-ported by Amato and Keith (1991).

Selection of Studies

Studies were located through computerized data-bases (such as PsycINFO and Sociological Abstracts)and the reference sections of review articles. Studieshad to meet two criteria for inclusion. First, studieshad to include a sample of children living with aparent who was single because of divorce and asample of children living with continuously marriedparents. Second, studies had to report data on at leastone child outcome that could be represented as aneffect size. As in the Amato and Keith (1991) meta-analysis, studies focusing on adult children of divorcewere excluded, although samples based entirely oncollege students were included. Unpublished confer-ence papers or doctoral dissertations were excluded.The search produced 67 studies published between1990 and 1999 that met these criteria. This totalincluded 1 study (Smith, 1990) covered in the orig-inal Amato and Keith meta-analysis. These 67 studiesare listed in the reference list. (See Amato and Keith,1991, for studies used in the earlier meta-analysis.)

Calculation of Effect Sizes

The most direct method of calculating effect sizesinvolved subtracting the mean score on the dependentvariable for children with married parents from themean score for children with divorced parents anddividing the difference by the pooled within-groupstandard deviation (Hedges & Olkin, 1985). If meansor standard deviations were not available, effect sizeswere calculated from t values, correlation coeffi-cients, probability values, or other statistics followingprocedures described by Rosenthal (1994). Signswere affixed to effect sizes so that a negative sign

indicated that children with divorced parents wereworse off than other children.

Effect sizes were calculated for each "independentsample" in a study. Independent samples existedwhen data from a single study were reported sepa-rately for two nonoverlapping groups, such as boysand girls. If an independent sample contributed twoor more effect sizes within the same outcome cate-gory (such as academic achievement), then thewithin-category mean of the effect sizes was calcu-lated. This procedure ensured that each independentsample contributed only one effect size to the overallmean effect size for a particular outcome (as reportedin the Results section).

It was not uncommon for two or more articles topresent results based on the same data set. Whenarticles reported on essentially the same cases andoutcomes, the article with the most complete infor-mation was included in the meta-analysis and theother articles were excluded. Sometimes two studiesused the same data set but reported results for differ-ent outcomes. In these cases, both studies were in-cluded. In other cases, studies used the same data setand similar outcomes but relied on different sub-samples of children. If there was no overlap—or onlyminimal overlap—in the subsamples, then both stud-ies were included in the meta-analysis.

Three types of effect sizes were distinguishedthrough the use of control variables. First, somestudies reported simple mean differences (i.e., zero-order differences) between children with divorcedand nondivorced parents. Effect sizes calculated fromthese data indicate how different (or similar) the twogroups of children were but tend to overestimate theeffects of divorce. (In other words, part of the differ-ence is due to divorce and part of the difference isspurious.) Second, some studies reported mean dif-ferences (or comparable statistics) adjusted for pre-divorce variables, such as parents' education, par-ents' personality, parents' marital conflict, orchildren's adjustment prior to separation. Effect sizesbased on outcomes adjusted for predivorce differ-ences provide estimates of the total effect of divorceon children. And third, some studies reported meandifferences adjusted for postdivorce variables, suchas household income or parent-child relations fol-lowing separation. Because these studies controlledfor possible mediating variables, the resulting effectsizes tend to underestimate the total effect of divorce.If studies provided more than one type of data (whichwas common), then it was necessary to decide whichtype of effect size would be calculated. The followingpriorities were used: (a) effect sizes based on meandifferences adjusted for predivorce variables, (b) ef-fect sizes based on simple mean differences, and (c)effect sizes based on mean differences adjusted forpostdivorce variables.

CHILDREN OF DIVORCE 359

Variables

Outcomes were coded into five general categories:academic achievement (standardized tests, grades,teacher's or parents' ratings of school achievement,dropping out of high school), conduct (misbehavior,aggression, delinquency), psychological and emo-tional adjustment (depression, anxiety, general hap-piness), self-concept (self-esteem, self-efficacy), andsocial relations (popularity, cooperativeness, qualityof peer relations). The original Amato and Keith(1991) meta-analysis included categories for mother-child relations and father-child relations, but theseoutcomes were not coded in the present study.

Consistent with Amato and Keith (1991), fourmethodological characteristics of studies were coded:whether the sample was selected on the basis of arandom process as opposed to convenience (1 =random, 0 = convenience), whether the study usedmultiple-item or single-item measures of outcomes(1 = multiple items, 0 = single item), whether thestudy used control variables or reported zero-orderassociations (1 = control variables, 0 = no controlvariables), and the sample size. (Clinical samples ofchildren, although rare in the 1990s, were counted asconvenience samples.) With respect to gender, sam-ples were coded as boys, girls, or mixed. With respectto age, samples were coded into five levels: pre-school, primary school, secondary school, mixed pri-mary and secondary school, and college. Finally, datawere recorded on the year of publication and the yearin which the sample was collected. If the year of datacollection was not reported, then it was coded as twoyears prior to the date of publication.

In the original Amato and Keith (1991) meta-analysis, two coders independently calculated effectsizes from a sample of articles, with a resultingintercoder correlation of .98. Two coders also inde-pendently classified measures into outcomes catego-ries (academic achievement, conduct, etc.), resultingin a kappa reliability coefficient of .84. In the presentmeta-analysis, two coders independently calculated asample of effect sizes, with a resulting intercodercorrelation of .90. The coders also independentlyclassified child outcomes, with a kappa reliability of.95. In general, the coding of data achieved a highstandard of reliability.

Results

Study Characteristics Across Decades

Table 1 presents data on characteristics ofstudies published between 1950 and 1979, 1980and 1989, and 1990 and 1999. Data for the1990s were obtained from 67 studies involving98 independent samples. These 98 samples, inturn, contributed 177 effect sizes to the meta-

analysis. Somewhat fewer studies were avail-able from the 1980s than from the 1990s, andeven fewer studies were available from earlierdecades. (The total number of studies publishedprior to 1990 is less than the number reported inAmato and Keith, 1991, because studies thatreported data only on parent-child relationswere excluded from Table 1.)

The distribution of child outcomes did notdiffer much across decades, although research-ers appeared to give slightly more attention toself-concept during the 1980s and 1990s than inearlier decades. Researchers appeared to giveroughly equal attention to children of each gen-der, although the most common situation, irre-spective of decade, was to report results formixed samples of boys and girls. With respectto age, studies in the 1990s gave little attentionto children of preschool age—even less than inearlier decades. There appeared to be a corre-sponding modest increase in the use of college-age samples in the 1990s. In each time period,however, the most common focus was on chil-dren of primary school age.

The largest changes in Table 1 are reflected inmethodology. The use of random samples be-came increasingly common over time, as did theuse of control variables to adjust for predivorcefactors. The use of multiple-item instrumentswas common in the 1990s, although the per-centage did not increase since the 1980s. Sam-ples were larger in the 1990s than in earlierdecades. (Medians rather than means appear inTable 1 because the distributions were posi-tively skewed.) Curiously, sample sizes weresomewhat smaller in the 1980s than in earlier orlater decades.

Effect Sizes in the 1990s

As a preliminary step, the distribution of 177unweighted effect sizes from studies publishedin the 1990s was examined without regard tooutcome. Effect sizes ranged from —1.25 to0.37, with a mean of —0.29 and a median of-0.24. In other words, the typical result wasone in which children with divorced parentsscored about one-fourth of a standard deviationlower than children with continuously marriedparents. Of the 177 effect sizes, 88% were neg-ative and 42% were negative and significant(p < .05). Only one effect size was positive andsignificant. Therefore, although the majority ofcomparisons were negative, most (58%) did not

360 AMATO

Table 1Characteristics of Effect Sizes by Decade of Publication

Effect size characteristic

Number of effect sizesNumber of independent samplesNumber of studiesChild outcome (%)

Academic achievementConductPsychological adjustmentSelf-conceptSocial relations

Gender of sample (%)Boys onlyGirls onlyMixed gender

Age of sample (%)PreschoolPrimary schoolMixed primary/secondarySecondary schoolCollege

Methodology (%)Random samplesControl variablesMultiple item measures

Mdn size divorced sampleMdn size nondivorced sample

1950-1979

683826

2532244

15

271657

9372722

6

15185657.5

188.0

Decade of publication

1980-1989

1427653

1324231920

171667

10411923

7

31258842.074.5

1990-1999

1779867

2223231616

272449

241103116

53408872.0

207.0

Note. Percentages are based on the total number of effect sizes.

lead to a rejection of the null hypothesis. (Notethat all significance tests reported in the presentstudy are two-tailed.)

Table 2 reports the mean unweighted andweighted effect sizes from studies published inthe 1990s. The mean unweighted effect size is agood indicator of the typical study result, be-cause each study (or sample) is weightedequally. Larger samples, however, have smallerstandard errors and for this reason provide more

accurate estimates of population parameters.Consequently, the mean weighted effect size(which weights the individual effect size by itssample size) provides a better estimate of theeffect size in the population. In the presentmeta-analysis, effect sizes were weighted andcombined using formulas for fixed-effect mod-els, as described by Hedges (1994) and Shadishand Haddock (1994).

The mean unweighted and weighted effect

Table 2Mean Effect Sizes Derived From Studies Published in the 1990s That Compared Children WithDivorced and Continuously Married Parents

Child outcome

Academic achievementConductPsychological adjustmentSelf-conceptSocial relations

n ofsamples

3940412829

Meanunweightedeffect size

-0.26***-0.33***-0.31***-0.24***-0.28***

Meanweighted

effect size

-0.16***-0.22***-0.21***-0.12**-0.15***

Heterogeneity119.47***103.04***104.38***58.28**

114.79***

Fail-safeN values

1,7451,7711,939

256544

**p < .01. ***p < .001.

CHILDREN OF DIVORCE 361

sizes were negative and statistically significantfor all outcomes. Unweighted mean effect sizesranged from —0.24 for self-concept to —0.33for conduct; the corresponding weighted meaneffect sizes were -0.12 and -0.22. The factthat the weighted effect sizes were consistentlylower than the unweighted effect sizes indicatesthat larger studies revealed narrower group dif-ferences than smaller studies. In general, al-though the mean weighted effect sizes for the1990s were modest in magnitude, they demon-strate the continuing gap in achievement, ad-justment, and well-being between children withdivorced and continuously married parents.

The present meta-analysis almost certainlyfailed to locate and include some studies pub-lished in the 1990s, and the sampling strategydeliberately excluded unpublished studies. Ifmost of these excluded studies reported nullresults, then the significance tests reported inTable 2 are too liberal. To address this problem,fail-safe N values were calculated (Rosenthal,1979). This statistic indicates the number ofadditional studies with null results that wouldneed to be added to the meta-analysis to reducethe mean effect sizes in Table 2 to insignifi-cance. All of the fail-safe N values were large.For example, there would need to be an addi-tional 1,745 studies of academic achievement—all with null results—to reduce the mean effectsize of —0.16 to an insignificant level. Be-cause the fail-safe N values were large, it isreasonable to conclude that the significancetests are valid. That is, in the larger populationfrom which these samples were drawn, childrenwith divorced parents scored lower than chil-dren with continuously married parents on theseoutcomes.

Table 2 also contains heterogeneity values(Hedges, 1994; Hedges & Olkin, 1985). Thestatistical significance of these values indicatesthat the variability in effect sizes across samplesis greater than expected by chance. If thesevalues are significant, then one is justifiedin exploring between-studies (or between-samples) characteristics that might account forvariability in effect sizes.

Effect Sizes and Study Characteristics

Children's gender. Comparisons of all-girland all-boy samples across the five outcomesrevealed few significant differences in effectsizes in the 1990s, with the exception of con-

duct. For this outcome category, the meanweighted effect size was -0.28 among the 15all-boy samples and -0.16 among the 15 all-girl samples (z = 2.04, p < .05). It is well-known that boys are more prone to behavioralproblems than girls, and divorce may exacer-bate this difference. In the Amato and Keith(1991) meta-analysis, effect sizes associatedwith marital disruption were significantlyhigher among all-boy samples than all-girl sam-ples with respect to social relations, but not withrespect to conduct. It is not clear why earlierstudies suggest a gender difference in socialrelations and later studies suggest a gender dif-ference in conduct. One possibility is that theapparent discrepancy reflects overlap betweenthe two outcome domains. Researchers mayconsider aggression among boys to be a conductproblem, but aggressive boys also experiencedifficulty forming and maintaining networks ofclose friends. In general, the present meta-analysis, considered with the earlier Amato andKeith meta-analysis, provides modest supportfor the notion that divorce has stronger effectson boys than girls, at least in some domains.Nevertheless, the mean weighted effect sizeswere significant for girls as well as boys acrossall five outcomes. The central finding, therefore,is that divorce is associated with a range ofpoor outcomes among children irrespective ofgender.

Children's ages. Although children's ageswere coded into five categories, the number ofsamples involving preschool children was toosmall for analysis, and the mixed category (partprimary school students, part high school stu-dents) was difficult to interpret. Consequently, aseries of comparisons were carried out betweenchildren in primary and secondary school. Ofthese comparisons, two were statistically signif-icant. The mean weighted effect size for aca-demic achievement was stronger for children inprimary school than in secondary school (—0.20vs. -0.14; z = 2.48, p < .01). In contrast, themean weighted effect size for psychologicaladjustment was weaker for children in primaryschool than in secondary school (—0.15 vs.-0.32, z = 4.98, p < .001). The explanation forthis apparent discrepancy is not clear. One pos-sibility is diat it is easier to measure psycholog-ical adjustment among adolescents thanyounger children. However, adolescents withserious academic problems, unlike younger

362 AMATO

children, may drop out of school, leading toweaker effect sizes for academic achievementamong adolescents. It is difficult to interpretthese results substantively because the data re-flect children's ages at the time of data collec-tion rather than children's ages at the time ofparental separation. Data on the latter variablewere not available in most studies. One cannottell, therefore, if a large effect size for highschool students reflects the recency of divorceor the long-term accumulation of disadvantagedue to experiencing divorce at an early age. Inspite of this ambiguity, the data indicate that, formost outcomes, mean effect sizes were negativeand significant regardless of children's ages atthe time of data collection.

Study methodology. Although relativelyfew gender and age differences appeared in thedata, methodological characteristics of studiesappeared to be more consequential. Amato andKeith (1991) reported a trend for methodologi-cal sophistication to be associated with weakereffect sizes, at least for some outcomes. Theresults of studies published in the 1990s wereconsistent with this earlier observation. Randomsamples yielded weaker effect sizes than didconvenience samples in terms of academicachievement (-0.20 vs. -0 .41 , z = 3.67, p <.001). Studies that conducted multivariate anal-yses reported smaller group differences thanstudies that reported zero-order associationswith respect to academic achievement (-0.14vs. -0.26, z = 1.97, p < .05) and psychologicaladjustment (-0.17 vs. -0.30, z = 3.67, p <.001). The use of multiple-item measures, asopposed to single-item measures, was associ-ated with weaker effect sizes for psychologi-cal adjustment (-0.20 vs. -0.49, z = 3.27,p < .01) and social relations (-0.13 vs.-0.27, z = 2.74, p < .01). Finally, studiesthat involved samples of 100 or more childrenfrom divorced families revealed weaker effectsizes than studies with smaller samples interms of self-esteem (-0.05 vs. -0.20, z =2.23, p < .05) and social adjustment (-0.13vs. -0.24, z = 4.04, p < .001). Overall, theseresults are consistent with the prior meta-analysis in showing that methodologically so-phisticated studies tend to report smaller dif-ferences between children from divorced andnondivorced families than methodologicallysimple studies.

Effect Sizes Across Decades

To explore variation in effect sizes acrossdecades, in Table 3 I report mean effect sizes bydecade of publication. For each outcome, thefirst row (labeled Unadjusted) shows the meanweighted effect size for each time period. Thesemeans were obtained from weighted multipleregression analysis—one analysis for eachoutcome—with decade serving as a predictor.(See Hedges, 1994, for a description of multi-variate methods for effect sizes.) The Q changestatistic reflects the amount of between-studiesheterogeneity accounted for by decade. If theoverall Q statistic was significant, then z testswere used to compare each pair of mean effectsizes.

With respect to academic achievement, de-cade of publication was related significantly toeffect sizes (see Table 3, first row), as reflectedin the significant Q statistic. Individual z testsrevealed that the mean effect size declined sig-nificantly from —0.29 in the earliest period to-0.14 in the 1980s. Similarly, the mean effectsize for the earliest period was significantlylarger than the mean effect size of —0.16 in the1990s. These findings suggest that the effects ofdivorce on academic achievement were rela-tively strong prior to 1980, then became weakerin the last two decades. The mean effect sizesfor the 1980s and 1990s, however, did notdiffer.

Making comparisons across decade may bemisleading, however, because of the shifts instudy methodology documented in Table 1. Totake changes in research methods into account,I conducted a second weighted multiple regres-sion analysis, with the four methodology vari-ables (random sample, multivariate analysis,multiple item indicators, and large sample size)included as predictors. The second row for eachoutcome (labeled Adjusted) shows the meaneffect sizes controlling for these study charac-teristics. In other words, this row shows whatthe mean effect sizes would have been if therehad been no improvements in methodologyacross decades. The corresponding Q statisticshows the amount of between-studies heteroge-neity accounted for by decade after the effectsof methodology were removed from the data.(In supplementary analysis, controls also wereintroduced for sample gender and age, but be-cause these study characteristics changed littleacross decades, these adjustments affected the

CHILDREN OF DIVORCE 363

Table 3Mean Weighted Effect Sizes by Decade of Study Publication

Child outcome

Academic achievementUnadjustedAdjustedN of samples

ConductUnadjustedAdjustedN of samples

Psychological adjustmentUnadjustedAdjustedN of samples

Self-conceptUnadjustedAdjustedN of samples

Social relationsUnadjustedAdjustedN of samples

Decade of publication

1950-1979

-0.29 a

-0 .25 a

17

-0.30 a

-0.29 a

22

-0.04 a-0.06 a

16

-0.22-0.22 a

3

-0.13-0.14

10

1980-1989

-0.14b-0.09b

19

-0 .21 b

-0.19b

34

-o. io a-0.09 a

33

-0.09-0.07b

27

-0.13-0.14

29

1990-1999

-0.16b

-0.17 c

39

-0.22b

-0.23,,,,40

-0 .21 b-0 .21 b

41

-0.12-0-14a,b

28

-0.15-0.15

29

Q change

14.95***14.27***

11.76**8.08*

36.02***15.49***

5.297.64*

0.470.03

Note. Mean effect sizes with different subscripts differ from one another at p <.05, two-tailed.*p<.05. **p<.01 . ***p<.001.

results in only minor ways and are notreported.)

The second row in Table 3 shows mean effectsizes for academic achievement adjusted forstudy quality. The Q statistic reveals that decadeof study continued to have a significant associ-ation with effect sizes with study methodologyheld constant. Comparable to the results basedon unadjusted data, z tests on the adjustedmeans revealed a significant decline in the es-timated effect of divorce between the earliestperiod and the 1980s (i.e., the mean effect sizemoved closer to zero). But contrary to the re-sults based on unadjusted data, the mean forstudies in the 1990s was significantly differentfrom the mean for studies published in the1980s. If studies in the 1980s and 1990s hadbeen comparable in methodology, then the ob-served gap in achievement between childrenwith divorced and married parents would haveincreased during the last decade.

With respect to conduct, the unadjusted re-sults indicate that effect sizes decreased signif-icantly between earlier decades and the 1980s,then changed little during the next decade. Withstudy methodology held constant, the mean ef-

fect size for the 1990s was no longer signifi-cantly different from the mean effect sizes inearlier decades. With respect to psychologicaladjustment, both the unadjusted and the ad-justed means indicate that effect sizes becamestronger in the 1990s than in earlier decades.These data suggest that the gap in psychologicaland emotional adjustment between childrenwith divorced and continuously married parentswas wider in the 1990s than at any earlier time.The unadjusted results for self-concept suggesta decline in effect sizes between the earlieststudies and studies in the 1980s, but the overalltrend (as reflected in the Q statistic) was notsignificant. Adjusting for study characteristicsmade the pattern more curvilinear and fullysignificant. Although not reported in Table 3,the difference between the 1980s and 1990sapproached significance (p < .10). Finally theresults for social relations, both unadjusted andadjusted, show no time trend.

Consistent with the findings of Amato andKeith (1991), the data in Table 3 suggest thateffect sizes for several outcomes were weaker inthe 1980s than in earlier decades. The results forthe 1990s, however, suggest that effect sizes for

364 AMATO

several outcomes (academic achievement, psy-chological adjustment, and to a lesser extent,self-concept) became stronger during the last 10years. Although Table 3 is suggestive of histor-ical trends, the data are limited by the somewhatarbitrary division of time into decades. Shiftsbetween one decade and the next may not rep-resent the most appropriate cutting points fordetermining trends over time.

To address this issue, additional analysesinvolving weighted multiple regression for ef-fect sizes were conducted—one for eachoutcome—in which decade was replaced withthe actual year of publication. Additional pre-dictors included year of publication squared (tocapture curvilinearity) and the four method-ological variables described above. These anal-yses revealed significant curvilinear trends foracademic achievement (z = 3.00, p < .01),conduct (z = 2.41, p < .05), psychologicaladjustment (z = 4.47, p < .001), and self-concept (z = 3.34, p < .001). The resultingequations were used to predict effect sizes foreach year of publication between 1960 and2000, with methodological characteristics set atthe mean of all studies for that particular out-come. (Too few studies were published prior to1960 to result in reasonable estimates, and pro-jections for 2000 represent a slight extrapola-tion from the data.)

These predicted values appear in Figure 1.Note the curvilinear trends for all four out-comes. For academic achievement, effect sizesmoved closer to zero (i.e., became weaker) be-

tween 1960 and the late 1980s, then declinedslightly (became stronger) during the 1990s.The curve for conduct reached its peak (wasclosest to zero) in the early 1980s, then fellduring the 1990s. For psychological adjustment,the curve rose (became weaker) during the1960s, reached its highest (weakest) point in themid 1970s, then fell (became stronger) duringthe next 25 years. The curve for self-conceptfollowed a similar pattern, rising throughout the1960s and 1970s, reaching its highest point inthe early 1980s, then falling throughout the lat-ter half of the 1980s and the 1990s.

One should keep in mind that the year ofpublication differs from the year in which datawere collected, with data collection sometimestaking place years (or even decades) prior topublication. To address this issue, a similar setof regression analyses were carried out based onyear of data collection rather than year of pub-lication. However, as noted in the Method sec-tion, nearly one half of all articles in this anal-ysis failed to indicate the year of data collection.To include studies with missing data in theanalysis, it was assumed that data were col-lected 2 years prior to the year of publication.The analyses focusing on year of collection,therefore, were only approximate. Nevertheless,the results of analyses based on year of datacollection were similar to the results based onyear of publication, with significant curvilineartrends appearing for academic achievement,conduct, psychological adjustment, and self-concept. This similarity is not surprising, given

-.40

" 1 1 1 ' 1 i 1 1 1 i ! 1 1 i 1 1 ! 1 i 11960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000

Year of Publication

Academic Conduct

• • Psychological Self-concept

Figure 1. Yearly trend in effect sizes associated with divorce for four child outcomes.

CHILDREN OF DIVORCE 365

that year of publication and year of data collec-tion correlated at .86 prior to substitution ofmissing data and .89 after substitution. Themain difference between the regression linesbased on year of data collection and year ofpublication was that the former curves reachedtheir highest (and weakest) point 3 to 6 yearsearlier, depending on the outcome.

Discussion

Many of the findings from the present studyreinforce conclusions from the earlier Amatoand Keith (1991) meta-analysis. In the 1990s, asin earlier decades, research indicated that chil-dren with divorced parents scored significantlylower than children with continuously marriedparents on a variety of measures of achieve-ment, adjustment, and well-being. Moreover, inthe 1990s, as in earlier decades, the evidence forgender differences in children's outcomes fol-lowing divorce is modest. Amato and Keith(1991) found that the deficit in social adjust-ment associated with marital disruption wasgreater for boys than for girls. In the 1990s,divorce was associated with greater conductproblems among boys than girls. But the moregeneral conclusion—in the earlier meta-analysis as well as in the present one—is thatmost of the disadvantages associated with di-vorce are similar for boys and girls.

Another continuity with the Amato and Keith(1991) meta-analysis involves the methodolog-ical characteristics of studies. In the 1990s, as inearlier decades, more methodologically sophis-ticated studies were associated with weaker ef-fect sizes. Of course, there are important excep-tions to this trend. Exemplary studies byHetherington and Clingempeel (1992), Simons(1996), and several other researchers producedlarger-than-average effect sizes. But in spite ofthese exceptions, across the broad range of stud-ies published in the 1990s, researchers whoreported multivariate analyses based on large,randomly selected samples tended to generateweaker effect sizes than researchers who re-ported bivariate analyses based on small, con-venience samples.

Given the fact that studies became moremethodologically sophisticated during the1990s and given that more methodologicallysophisticated studies tend to yield relativelymodest effect sizes, it follows that studies in the1990s should produce smaller effect sizes than

studies conducted in earlier decades. But thiswas not the case. Across most outcomes, studiesin the 1990s yielded effect sizes comparable tothose in the 1980s. Furthermore, controlling formethodological characteristics of studies tendedto expand the differences in effect sizes betweendecades. More detailed analyses, in which effectsizes were regressed on year of publication (aswell as year of data collection), revealed signif-icant curvilinear trends for academic achieve-ment, conduct, psychological adjustment, andself-concept, with effect sizes tending to beweakest in the early 1980s and stronger in the1990s.

As noted earlier in this article, two explana-tions may account for the recent increase in thegap in well-being between children with di-vorced and continuously married parents. First,there may have been a shift in the nature ofmarital dissolution, with more recent divorcesincreasingly including cases in which onlymoderately (rather than extremely) dissatisfiedindividuals leave their spouses to find greaterhappiness with new partners (Booth, 1999;Glenn, 1996). At the same time, the rise in ageat first marriage, as well as the increase innonmarital cohabitation, may have decreasedthe number of poor marital matches—matchesthat would otherwise have resulted in seriouslytroubled, conflicted marriages. Low-discordmarriages that end in divorce appear to be es-pecially distressing to children and are associ-ated with long-term decrements in children'sadjustment and well-being (Amato et al., 1995;Hanson, 1999; Jekielek, 1998; Morrison &Coiro, 1999). Consequently, the type of divorcethat is most distressing to children (i.e., separa-tions preceded by relatively little interparentaldiscord) may represent a greater proportion ofall marital dissolutions. It is difficult, of course,to document such a trend, and no direct evi-dence is available to support this explanation.Nevertheless, new research focused on thistopic would make an important contribution tothe literature.

A second reason for the increase in effectsizes in the 1990s refers to the increasing gap ineconomic well-being between children with sin-gle parents and children with married parents(White & Rogers, 2000). Two-parent familiestended to benefit from the economic expansionof the 1990s, especially if both parents were inthe paid labor force. Single-parent families, in

366 AMATO

contrast, did not share in the prosperity of thelast decade. To the extent that children benefitfrom increases in family income, those withmarried parents (as a group) would have pulledfurther ahead of those with single parents. Al-though this idea seems reasonable, however, nodirect data are available to test it.

Whatever the reason for the apparent de-cline in the relative well-being of childrenwith divorced parents during the last decade,this shift occurred in spite of the growth ofschool-based interventions for children, par-enting classes for divorcing parents, and di-vorce mediation. This conclusion does notmean that the spread of therapeutic and legalinterventions has not benefitted children—itonly means that other social forces have op-erated even more strongly to disadvantagechildren from divorced families.

Before concluding, it is necessary to point outsome limitations of the present study. First, thisstudy did not include unpublished conferencepapers or dissertations, so the results may havebeen influenced by publication bias. The calcu-lation of large fail-safe values, however, sug-gests that this omission did not seriously distortthe results. Second, the manner in which studyquality was operationalized was crude, as it wasbased on simple dichotomies such as randomversus convenience sampling. Moreover, manyimportant characteristics of studies—usingmultiple informants, direct observation of chil-dren, or longitudinal designs—were not consid-ered. Of course, it was necessary to code studyquality in this manner to maintain comparabilitywith the earlier study by Amato and Keith(1991). Finally, pooling the results of multiplestudies is not the ideal method of establishingtrends in effect sizes over time. The studiesincluded in the present meta-analysis differed inmany ways that could not be controlled. Abetter strategy would involve conducting iden-tical comparisons, using the same samplingstrategy, instruments, and analytic techniques,on repeated cross-sections of children in differ-ent decades. Unfortunately, such data are diffi-cult to obtain. Nevertheless, new research thatfocuses on cohort differences in children's ad-justment to divorce, and the processes that helpto explain them, would represent an importantcontribution to our understanding of how mar-ital disruption affects children's lives.

Implications for Practitioners

Although marital dissolution has becomenormative in American culture, practitionersshould be aware that children with divorcedparents, as a group, continue to fare more poorlythan children with continuously married par-ents. In particular, children with divorced par-ents achieve lower levels of success at school,are more poorly behaved, exhibit more behav-ioral and emotional problems, have lower self-esteem, and experience more difficulties withinterpersonal relationships. Indeed, the gap inwell-being between the two groups of childrenappears to have grown larger during the lastdecade. Furthermore, this gap is present irre-spective of children's gender or age. Practitio-ners working with divorcing families or chil-dren with single parents, therefore, should notunderestimate the extent to which family dis-ruption continues to represent a risk factor for arange of undesirable child outcomes.

At the same time, however, practitionersshould be aware that the average differencesbetween children with divorced and continu-ously married parents are not large in absoluteterms. These relatively small differences reflectthe diversity of outcomes among children inboth groups. The adjustment of children follow-ing divorce depends on a variety of factors,including the level of conflict between parentsbefore and after separation, the quality of par-enting from both the custodial and noncustodialparent, changes in the child's standard of living,and the number of additional stressors to whichchildren are exposed, such as moving or chang-ing schools. Depending on the specific constel-lation of factors around the time of divorce,children may exhibit an improvement in func-tioning, a modest decline in functioning thatimproves over time, a substantial long-term de-cline in functioning, or little change. Knowl-edge of group averages, therefore, cannot pre-dict how a particular child will adjust to familydisruption.

Nevertheless, the persisting—and apparentlyincreasing—gap between children with di-vorced and continuously married parents sug-gests the continuing importance of developingand evaluating therapeutic and educational pro-grams for divorcing families. Classes for di-vorcing parents, for example, have been intro-duced in many cities and states, but they varywidely in length and content, and evaluations of

CHILDREN OF DIVORCE 367

these programs are sparse. The same can be saidof many legal approaches. For example, an in-creasing number of mothers and fathers arecompleting parenting plans prior to marital dis-solution. Yet we know little about the conse-quences of parenting plans for children's post-divorce relations with parents and emotionalwell-being. Closer ties between practitionersand researchers will be necessary to formulateeffective strategies for minimizing the disrup-tive effects of marital dissolution on children.

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White, L., & Rogers, S. J. (2000). Economic circum- Accepted February 12, 2001 •

New Editors Appointed, 2003-2008

The Publications and Communications Board of the American Psychological As-sociation announces the appointment of five new editors for 6-year terms beginning in2003.

As of January 1, 2002, manuscripts should be directed as follows:

• For the Journal of Applied Psychology, submit manuscripts to Sheldon Zedeck,PhD, Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-1650.

• For the Journal of Educational Psychology, submit manuscripts to Karen R.Harris, EdD, Department of Special Education, Benjamin Building, Univer-sity of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742.

• For the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, submit manuscripts toLizette Peterson, PhD, Department of Psychological Sciences, 210 McAlesterHall, University of Missouri—Columbia, Columbia, MO 65211.

• For the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Interpersonal Relationsand Group Processes, submit manuscripts to John F. Dovidio, PhD, Depart-ment of Psychology, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY 13346.

• For Psychological Bulletin, submit manuscripts to Harris M. Cooper, PhD,Department of Psychological Sciences, 210 McAlester Hall, University ofMissouri—Columbia, Columbia, MO 65211.

Manuscript submission patterns make the precise date of completion of the 2002volumes uncertain. Current editors, Kevin R. Murphy, PhD, Michael Pressley, PhD,Philip C. Kendall, PhD, Chester A. Insko, PhD, and Nancy Eisenberg, PhD, respec-tively, will receive and consider manuscripts through December 31,2001. Should 2002volumes be completed before that date, manuscripts will be redirected to the new editorsfor consideration in 2003 volumes.