Family Break-Ups Affect Girls' Health More Than Boys'

A new study emerges that break-ups in the family can pose a significant risk on the health of children, especially girls. Even though both girls and boys are predisposed to adult health problems, University of Illinois researchers found that girls' mental and physical health are more at risk because they are more sensitive to home fragmentation compared with boys.

The study presents significant impacts family break-ups may have on depression, smoking and overall health status. "Prior research shows that family breakups affect boys more than girls through cognitive, educational, and emotional channels. We find that, if you grow up in a non-traditional family structure - single parent or step-parent or a cohabiting relationship - girls are more likely than boys to be depressed and report worse overall health," co-author Dr. Andrea Beller said.

Utilizing the data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, researchers gathered over 90,000 data from adolescents in four separate groups in 13 years. This study, however, chose 7,607 data from children between 15 and 18 years in the 1996 collection. Of these, 4,757 aged from 27 to 32 years were retained in the latest 2009 collection.

On the basis of certain criteria, selection process included homes with single mother but rejected those whose father died. The researchers followed up these children through adulthood taking note of the age they were left by their biological father. Mothers were also asked details about the separation and recent relationships.

The team found that girl's age mattered at the time the family broke up. For instance, ages 6 to 10 were a critical period for girl's development. Thus, significant adverse consequences affected on smoking, depression and negative overall health, which most likely continue to adulthood, if the mother married again or introduced new marriage-like partners.

They incorporated smoking in the study because former research found that children living with a single parent were more likely to engage in risky behaviors. Thus, this knowledge can be useful for public health policy to integrate family background as a precipitating factor in smoking as quitting the habit can also be hard for people with a broken family history.

Meanwhile, as for boys, much research is needed to delve deeply the impacts family break-up has on father-substitutes and family structures.