Abstract

The rise in divorced and single-parent families represents one of the most profound changes in the American family in the past four decades (Amato, 2005; Usdansky, 2009). As a result of this change, there has been an outpouring of interest from researchers over the potential “deterioration” of the American family and its effects on children. The impact of family structure on children has arguably been one of the most well researched areas in the social sciences, generating two thousand research articles on divorce between 2000 and 2009 alone (Amato, 2010).