The link between parental divorce and depression might not be what it seems

A recent study suggests that the increased risk of adult depression often associated with childhood parental divorce is largely explained by the parents’ own mental health and substance use challenges, rather than the divorce itself. By analyzing data from over 128,000 adults, researchers found that once factors like parental mental illness are taken into account, the statistical link between family structure and adult emotional distress mostly disappears. The findings were published in Psychiatry Research.

Past research, such as a 2019 meta-analysis, found that adults who experienced parental divorce during childhood tend to suffer from higher rates of depression and psychological distress. This observation led to a general assumption that the separation itself creates lasting emotional damage. However, family dynamics are complicated, and a marital split is rarely an isolated event. Many children who experience a family breakup also live through other household adversities.

For instance, a 2024 study indicated that adults who go through a divorce often carry higher underlying risks for mental illnesses, such as depression or anxiety. This raises a question about whether shared family vulnerabilities might explain both the breakdown of the marriage and the child’s later struggles. Previous researchers have used large health surveys to look at the long-term consequences of a changing family structure, such as a study covered by PsyPost in 2025 that linked parental divorce to an elevated risk of stroke in older adulthood.

The research, led by Mary Kate Schilke of Tyndale University and Esme Fuller-Thomson of the University of Toronto, set out to see if the apparent impact of parental divorce holds up when other negative childhood experiences are factored in. They also wanted to look at a growing but under-studied group: adults whose parents never married.

To answer these questions, the authors analyzed data from the 2021-2024 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. This is a massive telephone survey that collects health information from adults across the United States. The researchers focused on a sample of 128,264 adults. To ensure they were looking at the effects of family structure rather than severe trauma, they excluded anyone who reported experiencing physical or sexual abuse during childhood.

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The respondents answered questions about their parents’ marital status before they turned 18, categorized as continuously married, divorced, or never married. The researchers looked at two primary measures of mental health. The first was a self-reported lifetime diagnosis of depression. The second was frequent mental distress, which means the respondent experienced 14 or more days of poor mental health in the past month.

Before taking other background factors into account, the researchers observed a noticeable gap in mental health based on family structure. Adults whose parents were divorced reported a lifetime depression rate of 19.2 percent, and those with unmarried parents reported a rate of 18.7 percent. Both groups were higher than the 14.1 percent rate among adults whose parents stayed married.

A similar pattern appeared for frequent mental distress in the past month. The rates were 13.6 percent for those with divorced parents, 16.3 percent for those with unmarried parents, and 8.5 percent for those with continuously married parents.

The picture changed when the researchers adjusted their statistical models to account for other adverse childhood experiences. They looked at factors like household neglect, domestic violence, emotional abuse, and having a parent who was incarcerated. Two specific factors stood out for their massive impact on the results: parental mental illness and parental substance use.

When the researchers factored in parental mental illness, the association between parental divorce and the adult child’s depression dropped by 68 percent. For adults with unmarried parents, accounting for parental mental illness reduced the association with depression by 52 percent. Parental substance use also played a large role, reducing the link between parental divorce and adult depression by 49 percent.

When all childhood adversities, sociodemographic factors like income and education, and adult health behaviors were accounted for, the link between childhood family structure and adult mental illness was no longer statistically significant. This suggests that a divorce itself is not necessarily the root cause of later mental health struggles. Instead, a cluster of environmental and genetic factors that often accompany a divorce or an unmarried household seem to drive the increased risk.

As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The study relies on self-reported data, which means participants might not remember their childhood experiences perfectly. The cross-sectional nature of the survey also means the researchers cannot establish a timeline of events. They do not know if a parent’s mental illness started before or after a divorce, or exactly how old the child was when the separation occurred.

The category for unmarried parents is also quite broad. It lumps together single parents and parents who lived together but never legally married, which are two very different family environments. In addition, the survey only recorded the respondents’ socioeconomic status in adulthood, not during their childhood. A family’s financial situation during a divorce could play a large role in a child’s development, but the researchers did not have the data to track that specific pathway.

The study, “Long After the Split: The Association Between Parental Divorce and Mental Health in Adults,” was authored by Mary Kate Schilke, Philip Baiden, and Esme Fuller-Thomson.