Introduction
In Canada, divorce rates are rising, and we fear that they will continue to rise. Since the 1960s and 1080s, a divorce has been easier to obtain. With legalizing divorce, it has also been more socially acceptable overall (Butterfield, 2017). Factors that researchers have seen that impact marriage and lead to a divorce include low incomes, poverty, youthful marriages, and risk factors for divorce. As well as, when people see that divorce is easy to obtain, they have a lower threshold of tolerance when their marriage does not add up to their standards anymore (Butterfield, 2017). In 2015, reports showed that in adults 50 and older, there were more divorce rates than those of younger ages (Crouch, 2007). Another interesting statistic is between 2003 and 2011, this was considered a place of “lifetime risk” of divorce, where 38-40% of Canadians divorced before their 30th wedding anniversary (Butterfield, 2017). As well, second and third marriages in Canada are also more likely to end in divorce. Since the rate shows that divorce occurs before the 30th wedding anniversary, it is typically said that marriages last up to only 13.7 years (Butterfield, 2017). However, these divorce rates are not just numbers. When kids are involved, divorce has a large impact on them. Therefore, researchers see a strong relationship between juvenile delinquents and divorced parents. For instance, of the juvenile criminals, 75% of them are from broken homes (Crouch, 2007). Out of the broken homes, most of them are single mothers raising children. This can lead to youth criminality because if young men are growing up in a house without a father, it has been seen that they are more likely to end up in jail than those who come from a heterosexual family (mother and father/maternal and parental influences) (Crouch, 2007).
A Brief Overview of Divorce over the years
The origins of what we call modern divorce come from the same values that eventually got put above the marital relationship of all personal and familial commitments. This is in terms of the concentration of emotion, passion, personal identity, and self-validation in the couple's relationship and the reduction of emotional attachments (Coontz, 2007). In today’s day and age in terms of relationships, the causes of divorce may be seen as differential factors that include: psychological characteristics of the spouse that do not coincide with the other spouse, to monetary stressors (Coontz, 2007). However, in the bigger picture, the past made marriage the central idea and commitment to a relationship (Coontz, 2007). In today's day and age, you can make a commitment without marriage, but most people have the traditional idea that marriage is a must.
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It was back in the Enlightenment days, that marriage was seen to be based on love and companionship (Coontz, 2007). After those enlightenment days, conservatives in that era warned people that in traditional marriages, love would be the death of marriage (Coontz, 2007). As people were led to believe that notion, they would marry only appropriate mates of society. Back in that time of the 18th century, the concerns of the conservatives were that poor people would be given the right to marry (Coontz, 2007). The conservatives were afraid of the idea of poor people having the right to be married because they loved each other, instead of seeing that love was the danger (Coontz, 2007).
From those days, the social conservative’s predictions were made too soon. Access to divorce laws was easily obtainable almost immediately by many supports, and the French Revolution temporarily made divorce easier than it would be until the 1970s era was around, the increase in divorce rates went up gradually in this time (Coontz, 2007). The idea of divorce spread and judges all around became more in-depth on a case-to-case basis towards couples who wanted a divorce (Coontz, 2007). In America, however, fewer than half the states accepted the fact that abuse was the only reason for a divorce before 1840. After that time, however, abuse became to be less of a strong reason, and by 1860 more states allowed divorce in cases of not being healthy enough to live with the spouse (Coontz, 2007). To put it in perspective, between 1880 and 1890, the United States experienced a high increase in divorce (Coontz, 2007). Even a professor at Cornell University predicted that by 1980, more marriages would end in divorce rather than death, and he was only off by 10 years (Coontz, 2007).
Some factors that lead to divorce, provided by Butterfield (2017) include ideas like people are getting married at younger ages and are growing apart faster. This could be from career changes, and moving to another city for work which could trigger a separation from the ideological love that they once had. Some factors that some partners go through are emotional, psychological, physical, or financial abuse during the years, and then decide to separate for the sake of themselves and their children (Butterfield, 2017). The factor that a lot of researchers also see is that couples stay together for a lot of years, but then they decide to separate on the idea that they have been unhappy in the marriage for a long time and that not being together would bring back their happiness. As well as, people separate when they see a financial opening. Meaning when real estate goes up, or after receiving an inheritance (Butterfield, 2017).
Psychological Impact of Divorce on Youth
A family is supposed to be one of the most comforting and emotionally stable forces in a person’s life (Wright & Wright, 1995). They are supposed to teach children to understand what is unacceptable behavior, to delay gratification, and to respect other people around them, regardless of who they are (Wright & Wright, 1995). Well, that is what families are supposed to teach their children, however, it seems like more and more, families are teaching aggressive, antisocial, and violent behavior (Wright & Wright, 1995). That is why we are seeing more development of youth delinquents.
Children who are neglected by their parents, go through life with a lot of parental conflict, are not supervised correctly, and are at a larger risk of becoming delinquent at young ages (Wright & Wright, 1995) This can also go another way, that if a child is being troublesome or aggressive, then they can be rejected easily by their parents which leads into the cycle again. However, not all children in homes like that follow down the same path. Research does confirm that children who are raised in supportive, affectionate, and two-parent homes are less likely to become delinquents (Wright & Wright, 1995). The single-parent families, (in particular mother-only families) raise more delinquent children than two-parent families. The studies show that parenting practices account for most, but not all, of the differences between the two groups (Wright & Wright, 1995).
In 2009, was a survey produced that asked about 1,000 teenagers, in the age of youth, to share their opinions on divorce (Jolivet, 2012). The survey presented their attitudes, thoughts, and feelings about divorce and family issues. The teenagers that were surveyed were both from marriages and divorced homes (Jolivet, 2012). Ultimately the message received from the children is that they wanted their parents to stay together, but if that was not possible, to keep them out of their conflict (Jolivet, 2012). When the teens were asked what they wanted their parents to know, they said that the divorce hurt, and sucked and that they don’t want to be blamed for it or be caught in the middle of the divorce or the relationship between the two parents. (Jolivet, 2012).
In the article, Jolivet (2012), explains that studies have shown that the effects of consistent conflict on children lead to feelings of: “ chronic stress, insecurity, and agitation; shame, self-blame, and guilt; a chronic sense of helplessness; fears for their own physical safety; a sense of rejection, neglect, and lack of interest in the well-being” (Jolivet, 2012). However, the research also shows that the effect of high-conflict divorce on children roughly doubles in the rate of behavioral and emotional adjustment problems (Jolivet, 2012).
Specifically, psychological scholars, suggest that children who experience family conflict at home and are in a hostile home environment increase stress and anxiety, which leads to a lower psychological adjustment to the environment they are in and are presented with negative life outcomes (Boccio & Beaver, 2019). Also, there is an association between parental divorce and negative outcomes that can be explained by the parental absence. Parental absence is predicted to be related to negative outcomes because there is a removal of a resource from the home that leads to a lower income, less supervision of the children, less parental attention and support, and a decrease in attachment to their parents because of the lack attention and support (Boccio & Beaver, 2019).
Having absent parents also falls in line with several criminological theories that have been seen to help explain the relationship between parental divorce and delinquent behavior (Boccio & Beaver, 2019). Control theory for instance is used in suggestions that experiencing parental divorce has a big impact on the bonds that are supposed to form between parents and their children. This lack of bond would increase the likelihood that children will engage in deviant behavior (Boccio & Beaver, 2019). Also, adding to that point, removing a parent from the household reduces the ability for both parents to have control over their Child's behavior- freeing the child to engage in deviant or criminal activities. (Boccio & Beaver, 2019). Another theory that can be used to explain the relationship between divorce and youth delinquency is the social learning theory. This can help explain the relationship because, when children are from divorced families, and there is a lack of parental supervision, the children/youths may spend more time with delinquent peers (Boccio & Beaver, 2019). On the other side of things, strain theory, which falls more towards conflict in families, strain theory suggests that parental divorce exposes children to strain (both psychologically and physically) and, therefore, increases the likelihood that they will engage in deviant behavior (Boccio & Beaver, 2019).
With every relationship between two factors, there are always different explanations and outcomes. For example, it is possible that parents who get divorce, are highly different from parents who do not divorce, and with the situation being so different, not all children will have the same outcome in life (Boccio & Beaver, 2019). Parents who get divorced, for example, could be more likely to have stronger tempers (for reasons such as genetics or socialization), which increases the likelihood of engaging in criminal behaviors (Boccio & Beaver, 2019).
Relation of divorce to delinquent youths
As early as the 1960s, research has shown a considerably higher rate of incidents of family conflict among youths convicted of criminal offenses than among the non-criminal youth population (Juby & Farrington, 2001). Interestingly enough, one American researcher in the 1950s found that a large part of the relationship might have to do with the difference in treatment by the police and the courts. This can be explained because two-parent homes were seen to be better at providing better supervision, youths from these homes were less likely to be seen in court than those who come from conflicted families (Juby &Farrington, 2001).
In Juby & Farrington (2001), they explain that there are life course theories to help explain the relationship between delinquents and divorce. The theories show that divorce is a process that is characterized by a lot of potentially stressful experiences that begin before the actual separation of the parents and the stressors continue after the process is done (Juby & Farrington, 2001). The theories also suggest that it is not just one type of stressor, but it is the number of negative events that can come from the problems of the children involved in the divorce (Juby & Farrington, 2001). However, in terms of a criminological aspect, family disruption itself is a huge risk factor for youth delinquency. Especially those children under the age of 5, they are at a higher risk of delinquency than those children who had experienced family disruption at an older age (Juby & Farrington, 2001).
Not only is it the disruption of the family itself, but there is also a high correlation between juvenile delinquency and trauma. It has been seen that those youths with a juvenile justice system record, have been found more likely to have experienced multiple forms of trauma, with more than half reporting exposure to multiple types of trauma each year (Baglivio & Epps, 2016).
Specifically, with respect to the numbers, in a comparison of over 90,000 official criminal youths, have been placed in Child Protection Services due to parental conflict and abuse, as well as foster care placement has been shown to make a high contribution to the risk for delinquency (Baglivio & Epps, 2016). Another point Baglivio & Epps (2016) make is that the differences in criminal youths between those exposed to parental divorce and those from intact families have not decreased, despite the increase they saw in social acceptability and prevalence of divorce in recent decades (Baglivio & Epps, 2016). This was an interesting point made because they looked at adoptive and biological families to back the point up, and they found that the relationship with criminal youths was driven by the parental divorce experience.
From a study done by van de Weijer et al (2015), it was found that children from one-parent families are at a larger risk of dropping out of school, leaving the labor force, becoming pregnant as a teen, and having a lower psychological well-being. This is in correlation to those children from two-parent families. As we know, dropping out of school and not working are both risk factors for delinquency. Even previous studies have presented, consistently, that divorce also leads to their children being antisocial, which then leads to criminal behavior (van de Weijer et al, 2015). To make the point stand higher, research shows that youth criminality occurs more often among children with divorced parents than among children with married parents (van de Weijer et al, 2015).
The relationship between the idea that divorced (or single-parent family), and children’s behavior problems can be tied into a few theoretical perspectives (van de Weijer et al, 2015). According to the research from van de Weijer et al (2015), the movement from a two-parent, to a one-parent family might also lead to a loss of income, and parental and community resources, which then causes problems in the family as there are strains put on the single parent. The research argues that one-parent families who have less income, since there is only one parent providing and earning the income, show fewer expenses that can be shared (van de Weijer et al, 2015). Since parental divorce decreased resources, fathers who live in a separate house due to the divorce, are seen to have less contact with their children, which young children look at as a lack of commitment to them, trust, and less supervision of the child itself (van de Weijer et al, 2015).
Since single parents have more expenses, and fewer resources, single mothers or single fathers cannot afford to reside in good communities, with resources for their children (van de Weijer et al, 2015). Fewer resources for the children back up the idea that they will most likely drop out of school, and it will lead to a lot of antisocial problems as adolescents. Even when the children have no outside-of-school activities because the parents can’t afford them, or have the time to get them there, it shows that one-parent families don’t have the time, are less supportive of their children, has little to no rules or complete harsh discipline, and they engage in more conflict with their children because they have no significant other to take their anger out on (van de Weijer et al, 2015).
Conclusion
To conclude, we can now see that divorce has a large impact on a child, and can be a risk factor when leading kids into delinquent activities. When looking at the numbers, divorce rates are not just numbers we analyze. When kids are involved, divorce has a large impact on them, whether it be psychological or physical. Researchers see a strong relationship between juvenile delinquents and divorced parents. For instance, of the juvenile criminals, 75% of them are from broken homes (Crouch, 2007). Out of the broken homes, most of them are single mothers raising children. This can lead to youth criminality because if young men are growing up in a house without a father, these young men are seen to be more likely to end up in jail, than those who come from a traditional home (mother and father/maternal and parental influences) (Crouch, 2007). Along with risk factors, we see that criminological theories such as; social leaning, strain, and social bond theories all help explain the relationship between divorce and youth criminality. Therefore, there is a strong relationship between the two factors, and we are not seeing a change in the numbers as long as divorce rates increase.
Bibliography
- Baglivio, T. M., Epps, N. (2015). The interrelatedness of adverse childhood experiences among high-risk juvenile offenders. Youth, Violence and Juvenile Justice, 14 (3), 179-198.
- Boccio, M. C., Beaver, M. K. (2019). The influence of family structure on delinquent behavior. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 17 (1), 88-106.
- Butterfield, M. (2017). Divorce Statistics in Canada: A snapshot. Retrieved on March 3rd, 2019, from: https://www.butterfieldlaw.ca/divorce-statistics-in-canada-a-snapshot/
- Coontz, S. (2007). The origins of modern divorce. Family Process, 46 (1), 1-10.
- Crouch, J. (2007). Divorce Statistics and Studies Blog, Divorce rates: Understanding Divorce Rates. Retrieved from http://www.divorcereform.org/crime.html, on January 30th, 2019.
- Howell, N. (2015). A link between single-parent families and crime. School of Graduate and Continuing Studies, 1-95.
- Juby, T., Farrington, P. H. (2001). Disentangling the link between disrupted families and delinquency. The British Journal of Criminology, 41 (1), 22-40.
- Jolivet, R. K. (2012). The psychological impact of divorce on children: what is a family lawyer to do? American Journal of Family Law, 25 (4), 175-183.
- Van de Weijer, G.A. S., Thornberry, P. T., Bijleveld, C.J.H. C., Blokland, A.J. A. (2015). The effects of parental divorce on the intergenerational transmission of crime. Societies, 5, 89-108.
- Wright, N. K., Wright, E. K. (1995). Family life and Delinquency and crime: A policymakers’ guide to the literature. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1-61.
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