Monday, Sep 18, 2006
Girls’ School Performance Improves When Battling Parents Divorce
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When it comes to performance in school, it seems that a opting for a divorce is better for a couple’s school-age daughters, rather than being brought up in a bad marriage.
A conducted by Mark Hoekstra, who did the research for his doctoral dissertation in economics at the University of Florida.
Hoekstra said that the findings were contrary to the expectation that marriage is always good for children while divorce is bad.
The study found that the schoolwork of girls whose parents split up is better than that of girls who live with a mom and dad who don’t get along.
“There is no question, as I and other researchers find, that boys and girls from two-parent intact families perform better academically than boys and girls whose parents divorced. But I was surprised to learn that girls whose parents divorced do better in school than girls from similarly troubled families whose parents went to the brink of divorce but remained married,” he said.
Hoekstra studied detailed student records on behavior and standardized test scores, as well as divorce records, from 1993 to 2003. By matching divorce records to student records, he was able to identify 690 students whose parents divorced and 111 students whose parents filed for divorce but later withdrew from the process.
He found that those with divorced parents scored an average of slightly more than eight points higher on standardized reading and mathematics tests than girls whose parents filed for divorce but later requested the case be dismissed.
No academic differences were found for boys, although they did experience a short-term increase in disciplinary problems immediately after divorce.
One possible reason girls in families with troubled marriages are more likely to experience academic problems is that they may be more adversely affected by conflict, he said.
Hoekstra said divorce also gave mothers and daughters an opportunity have a closer relationship, something that may also explain their stronger academic performance.
“Since in most cases mothers have primary custody, there may be a mother-daughter bond that forms as a result of a divorce that daughters respond to in a positive way compared to what would have happened if the parents had remained married,” he said.
The results have important implications for divorce reform initiatives that have gained popularity recently because of concerns about the effects of divorce on children, Hoekstra said.
“My research suggests that policy-makers ought to be less concerned with whether or not parents legally dissolve their marriages and more concerned with helping them overcome the types of problems that cause them to contemplate divorce in the first place,” Hoekstra said.
“Unless the intervention can resolve the issues that got the family to the point of considering divorce, it will result in considerably lower academic achievement for the daughters involved,” he added. (ANI)
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