Title:
The Changing Impact of Family Dissolution – Parental Divorce and Adult Psychological Well-Being in Sweden 1968-2000

Abstract:
A large number of studies have shown that parental divorce affects children’s living conditions on a number of dimensions. Less is known, however, on whether the magnitude of the impact has changed over time. This is mainly due to a lack of data, i.e. repeated cross-sectional or longitudinal data. Meta-studies analysing research conducted across several decades conclude, however, that the impact of parental divorce generally declined between the 1950s and the 1980s and increased again in the 1990s. A problem with meta-studies, though, is the lack of comparability between included studies. In this paper we use data from the three waves of the Swedish Level of Living Survey, conducted in 1968, 1981, and 2000, to analyze the impact of parental divorce on the psychological adjustment of adult children of divorce. Preliminary results indicate that the association has constantly weakened over time for severe psychological problems, i.e. later cohorts are not as severely affected by their parents’ divorce as earlier cohorts. Instead respondents from dissolved families are now (2000) slightly more likely to suffer from mild psychological problems than respondents who grew up with both their biological parents.