Long-Term Implications of Parental Divorce for Adult Self-Concept

Abstract

Adult respondents who experienced parental divorce or death as children were compared with respondents who grew up in continuously intact families on two measures of self-concept: self-esteem and sense of power. No differences in self-esteem were observed across the three groups. Respondents who experienced parental divorce scored significantly lower on sense of power than did respondents from intact families. However, this difference was no longer significant when controls were introduced for respondents' education. Further analysis indicated that low educational attainment largely mediated the relationship between parental divorce during childhood and low sense of power as an adult.