The Effects Of Divorce On Children From Life-Course and Family Systems Perspectives: Example Of Denizli In Turkey

Divorce has negative socio-economic and interpersonal consequences on adults/childrenconsist of behavioral and emotional problems. They are more likely to divorce, more likely to marry at young ages, to report problems, perceived instability, conflict, lack of trust in their marriages. Many two-parent families don’t offer a happy environment for children. Parental divorce may disrupt the life course, with lifelong consequences for children well-being:lowered socio-economic status and problems in interpersonal relationships. Compared with individuals who grew up with both parents, children of divorce have lower levels of education, occupational status, and income, higher levels of economic hardships more often marry young, divorce and remarry several times, find themselves in unhappy relationships, and mistrust people in general. However they do not have lower levels of social support in their life. These relations may vary according to age, minority status, sex, parental education, parental death and  socio-economic status.

 In our research, we indicate the effects of divorce on adults children who live in Denizli. The sample was randomly selected from living with divorced parents in Denizli. The effects of divorce are determined according to the adult's age, gender, parental conflict, post-divorce family stability, parent-child relationships, education, socio-economic status. These variables are significant to understand the effects of divorce on children. We examine the association between child depression and childhood parental divorce using a representative sample of 354in Denizli (177 male and 177 female). Firstly, in our research, methodological issues area are addressed in this context. Secondly, the findings are discussed within a theoretical framework using family systems concepts and life-course theory’s argumants. Results strongly support the our research hypothesis. Cultural differences and implications of the study are also discussed. Our research is supported by TUBITAK (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey). We thank to TUBITAK for supporting to our research project.