Divorce and the Next Generation

Effects on Young Adults' Patterns of Intimacy and Expectations for Marriage

This informative book clarifies the complex picture of how the experience of divorce in one generation may influence the next generation’s approach to and preparedness for marriage. It identifies research and clinical issues regarding the effects of the parental divorce experience on young adults’patterns of dating, attachment, and mate selection. Divorce and the Next Generation focuses primarily on young adults and the patterns and attitudes regarding intimacy and attachment that they will carry into their own adult marriages.

The book contains research studies which compare differing variables of developmental achievement, personal adjustment, and attitudes of children from divorced and nondivorced families. The implications of these findings for understanding the intergenerational effect from divorce in one generation to marriage in the next are crucial as they guide professionals in their work with young adults and divorcing families in clinical and educational settings. This enlightening volume provides a foundation and a stimulus for more research into these dynamics.

Divorce and the Next Generation addresses topics such as:

• the effects of childhood family structure and perceptions of parental marital happiness on marital and parenting aspirations

• differences in intimate relationships between college students from divorced and intact families

• a literature review of short- and long-term effects of parental divorce on children

• the effects of conflict and family structure on attitudes toward marriage and divorce

• differences in marriage role expectations between college students of divorced and intact families

• effects of parental divorce on children in Erikson’s identity stage

• indirect effects of parental divorce on self-concept via changes in family environment

• correlates of self-esteem among college-age offspring from divorced families

  Divorce and the Next Generation is full of useful information for beginning and advanced family therapists, marital counselors, family and psychological researchers, and other professionals interested in the effects divorce has on the families involved.