Delinquent behavior, future divorce or nonmarital childbearing, and externalizing behavior among offspring: A 14-year prospective study.

Abstract

In a longitudinal study of a national sample, more externalizing behavior problems were found among 222 children from never-married and 142 children from divorced families than among 840 children from married families. However, delinquent behavior reported when future mothers were single, childless adolescents prospec-tively predicted their future marital status and behavior problems among their offspring 14 years later. Maternal history of delinquent behavior accounted for much, but not all, of the relationship between marital status and children's external-izing behavior. Divorce and nonmarital childbirth do not occur at random, and these findings demonstrate that marital status is predicted by individual characteristics as well as by demographic factors. These findings highlight the importance of cau-tiously interpreting the much-discussed correlation between marital status and children's behavior problems. Much research has been conducted on the psychological adjustment of children who are born outside of marriage or whose parents divorce. Research has been stimulated by the dramatic increases in the rates of both divorce and nonmarital childbirth in the United States since the 1960s. Rates have stabilized and are slowly showing a downward trend, but about 40 % of all children born to married parents still are predicted to experience their parents ' di-vorce (U.S. Census Bureau, 1992), and about 25 % of all children in the United States

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