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Journal of Family Issues
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Marital Status, Marital Process, and Parental Resources in Predicting Adolescents’ Emotional Adjustment

A Multilevel Analysis

Inge Vandervalk

Utrecht University, I.vandervalk{at}fss.uu.nl

Ed Spruijt

Utrecht University

Martijn De Goede

Utrecht University

Wim Meeus

Utrecht University

Cora Maas

Utrecht University

This study examined the relationship between adolescent emotional adjustment and the family environment (i.e., family status, family process, and parental resources). This was done by way of multilevel analyses, with a sample of 2,636 parent-child couples of both intact and divorced families. The results indicated that adolescent emotional adjustment was clearly based on the family as well as on the individual. We found support for the hypothesis that growing up both in postdivorce families and in intact families with a low marital quality related negatively to adolescent emotional adjustment. Our hypothesis that parental resources, in the form of parental support, parent-adolescent relationship, and parental psychological health, partly mediate the negative association between low marital quality and divorce on one hand and youngsters’ adjustment on the other hand was also confirmed. Growing up in postdivorce families was especially detrimental for the emotional adjustment of girls.

Key Words: adolescent • adjustment • divorce • marital quality • family systems

Journal of Family Issues, Vol. 25, No. 3, 291-317 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/0192513X03257429
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