Lacey, RE; Bartley, M; Pikhart, H; Stafford, M; Cable, N; Coleman, L; (2012) Parental separation and adult psychological distress: evidence for the 'reduced effect' hypothesis? Longitudinal and Life Course Studies , 3 (3) 359 - 368.

Preview

PDF 1355608.pdf Available under License : See the attached licence file. Download (478kB)

Abstract

Parental separation has been linked to increased likelihood of reporting psychological distress in adulthood, but relatively little is known about how this association may have changed over time. One hypothesis is that as the experience of separation has become more common, the association with psychological distress will reduce (the ‘reduced effect’ hypothesis). Previous evidence using the British birth cohorts does not support this hypothesis, but past studies have several limitations which we aim to address. In this study we measure parental separation from birth, account for missing data and statistically test cohort differences using data from two British birth cohorts – the 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS) and 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS). Despite these methodological improvements, we find little evidence to support the ‘reduced effect’ hypothesis: parental separation was associated with a similarly increased likelihood of reporting psychological distress in adulthood for men and women in both cohorts.

Download activity - last month

Export as XMLJSONCSV

Download activity - last 12 months

Export as XMLJSONCSV

Downloads by country - last 12 months

Export as XMLCSVJSON

Archive Staff Only

View Item