The Influence of Parental Divorce on Children's Life-Course in Japan

Nobutaka Fukuda , Tohoku University

This study aims to investigate the influence of parental divorce on children's life course in Japan. Like other developed countries, marital disruptions have increased in number over the past decades. While many studies have been hitherto conducted on the relation between marital disruption and children's life-course in Europe and U.S.A., there has been little research concerning the impact of parental divorce on life-course in Japan. The paper addresses the influence of parents' divorce on three events (living natal home, cohabitation and marriage) in children's life course. Data come from the Japanese Generations and Gender Survey (JGGS). This is a nationwide panel survey conducted from 2004 until 2013. The targeted population is Japanese men and women between ages 20 and 45. We selected male and female respondents over age 20 at the time of the first wave of JGGS. Event-history analysis was used to examine the influence of parental divorce on living home, cohabitation and marriage. Moreover. socio-economic and demographic variables were included in our analytical model as independent variables. Results showed that parental divorce hardly increased the risk of children's leaving natal home. Second, the probability of entering a consensual union was greater for children who experienced parental divorce. Third, parents' divorce hardly decreased the hazard rate of marriage. In conclusion, as far as the present study shows, parental marital disruption increases a risk of cohabitation in Japan. Hence, parental divorce tends to promote children to entering a consensual union. Yet, marital breakup has no bearing on home-leaving and childbirth.

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 Presented in Session P1. Poster Session Fertility, Family and the Life Course