Parents with daughters are more likely to separate during the teenage years

Attitudes toward gender roles could explain some of the tension arising between teen girls and their parents. Photo / 123RF

Sullen exchanges and broken curfews are part of life for parents of teenagers, but could this period also be a stress-test for parents' marriages?

A new data analysis finds parents with daughters are slightly more likely to separate than those with sons, but only during the teenage years.

And it's the strained relationship between parents and their daughters that might bring a couple to the breaking point.

Our working paper studied more than 2 million marriages in The Netherlands over 10 years and shows that divorce risks increase with children's ages until they reach adulthood - with parents of teenage daughters at greater risk.

However, this risk disappears in cases where the fathers grew up with a sister.

Evidence on teen girls and divorce
Our research examined registry data from The Netherlands. Dutch records are comprehensive and, importantly, the data allow us to examine the gender of couples' children, and how long after their birth the couples split.

We found that up until the age of 12, there are no differences between the divorce risks faced by parents of boys and girls.

However, between the ages 13 and 18, parents of first-born girls divorce more than parents of first-born boys.

The odds of divorce within this period are 10.7 per cent for parents of boys, and 11.3 per cent for parents of girls. In relative terms, this means that parents with teenage daughters face 5 per cent higher risks of divorce than parents with teenage sons.

The effect peaks at age 15, when the risk faced by parents with daughters is almost 10 per cent higher than the risk faced by parents with sons.

In the following years, the differences narrow again, and they disappear once the child turns 19. A similar pattern is also found among second and subsequent children.

Attitudes to gender
Social scientists suggest there are several reasons why daughters might raise divorce risks. One established theory says that some parents have cultural or social preferences for sons.

Another theory assumes that boys are more vulnerable and their need of a male role model makes fathers more committed to the marriage. There is also a sex-selection theory which postulates that mothers whose marriages are more stressful may be more likely to give birth to a baby girl.

However, we do not find empirical evidence in support of any of these theories.

Instead, our findings suggest the higher divorce rates are explained by strains in the relationships between some parents and their teenage daughters, possibly stemming from differences in attitudes toward gender roles. This explanation is backed by the separate analysis of a large survey of Dutch households, which asked families about their relationships and opinions regarding marriage, gender and parenting.

Parents of teenage daughters disagreed more about the way they should raise their children, and expressed more positive attitudes towards divorce. They were also less satisfied with the quality of their family relationships.

Teen daughters, in turn, reported worse relationships with their fathers, though not with their mothers.

Growing up with a sister
Our hypothesis is that the fathers who had more experience relating to teenage girls (via their sisters) would experience fewer relationship strains with their teenage daughters.

This could occur because fathers with sisters may hold more egalitarian attitudes toward gender roles, or because they have a better understanding of teenage girls and their family interactions.

And indeed, we found that the fathers who grew up with sisters did not face any increase in divorce risks from teenage daughters.

We also looked at other family characteristics that could indicate differences between the gender-role attitudes held by parents and their daughters, such as the ages or immigration background of the couple.

Here, we found that the parents who are likely to hold more traditional attitudes toward gender roles experienced higher increases of divorce odds from teen daughters.

Destined for divorce?
Despite their relative significance during the teen years, the difference in the divorce risks faced by families with boys and girls remains modest over the child's lifetime.

By the time their first-born children hit age 25, 311 out of every 1000 Dutch couples with daughters had divorced compared with 307 of every 1000 with sons - a difference of four divorces per 1000 couples.

And our finding of a null effect among fathers who grew up with sisters also shows that the association between a child's gender and divorce risk is not universal.

However, our results do point to serious strains between some parents and their teenage daughters, and help us understand the factors contributing to family breakdown.

The results also suggest these risks can be reduced if the parents of teenage daughters adopt more egalitarian attitudes towards gender roles and a greater understanding of how conflicts could come up.

- The Conversation