More or less help? A longitudinal investigation of positive and negative consequences of divorce for informal helping

Figures & data

Table 1. Descriptive statistics per wave.

		Wave 1 (N = 1,919)		Wave 2 (N = 1,939)^a		Wave 3 (N = 1,439)		Wave 4 (N = 888)
	Range	Mean	SD	Mean	SD	Mean	SD	Mean	SD
Informal helping hours	0–5	2.13	1.60	2.24	1.59	2.02	1.48	2.04	1.50
Marital status
Married	0/1	0.80		0.77		0.77		0.78
Divorced or separated	0/1	0.20		0.23		0.23		0.22
Moderating variables
Having an adult child (vs. not having an adult child)	0/1	0.57		0.60		0.65		0.72
Working full time (vs. not working full time)	0/1	0.48		0.47		0.46		0.49
Income	3.03-179.05	56.50	42.72	56.35	42.10	59.80	41.92	68.31	41.42
Background variables
Male (vs. female)	0/1	0.41		0.41		0.43		0.45
Age^b	25–89	50.23	15.42	52.99	15.51	56.33	14.47	59.97	12.93
Educational attainment
No degree	0/1	0.26		0.25		0.21		0.15
High school degree	0/1	0.58		0.58		0.61		0.63
College degree	0/1	0.16		0.16		0.18		0.22
Ethnicity
White	0/1	0.65		0.65		0.68		0.73
Black	0/1	0.25		0.25		0.23		0.19
Hispanic	0/1	0.04		0.04		0.04		0.03
Native American	0/1	0.05		0.05		0.05		0.04
Other	0/1	0.01		0.01		0.01		0.02

Note: ^aMore individuals were included in the second wave than in the first wave. While striking, this was the result of removing all observations in which individuals had never been married. This marital status occurred most often in the first wave, causing those observations to be removed. These same respondents entered the sample if they had married before the next wave.

^b Although only age at Wave 1 is included in the hybrid panel models in Appendix A, here we present age at the time of the specific wave.

Source: ACL, 1986-2002.

Table 2. Prevalence of changes in informal helping and transitions to divorce by wave.

	Wave 1–2 (N = 1,939)	Wave 2–3 (N = 1,439)	Wave 3–4 (N = 888)	Total (N = 6,185)
Informal helping
Increase in helping	36.0% (699)	27.7% (398)	31.8% (282)	32.3% (1,379)
Decrease in helping	31.9% (619)	43.1% (620)	38.4% (341)	37.0% (1,580)
Marital status
Divorce	2.6% (65)	3.0% (56)	4.4% (50)	4.0% (171)

Source: ACL 1986–2002.

Table 3. Informal helping (hours on scale from 0 to 5) after staying in marriage or transition to divorce per wave.

	Wave 2 (N = 1,939)	Wave 3 (N = 1,439)	Wave 4 (N = 888)	Total (N = 6,185)
Staying in marriage	2.24	2.01	2.09	2.13
Experienced divorce	2.22	2.43	1.84	2.18

Source: ACL 1986–2002.

Table 4. Fixed effects models predicting informal helping (N observations  = 6,185, N individuals = 1,955).

	Model 1		Model 2		Model 3		Model 4
	B	SE	B	SE	B	SE	B	SE
Marital status (ref. = married)
Divorce	0.123***	0.122	0.230	0.157	0.258	0.140	−0.008	0.151
Household income			0.001	0.001
x divorce			−0.002	0.002
Adult children (ref. = no)					0.426***	0.075
x divorce					−0.333*	0.140
Full time employment							−0.168*	0.069
x divorce							0.206	0.131
Wave (ref. = wave 1)
Wave 2	0.107**	0.041	0.107**	0.041	0.097*	0.041	0.104*	0.041
Wave 3	−0.262***	0.046	−0.260***	0.046	−0.306***	0.047	−0.273***	0.047
Wave 4	−0.325***	0.056	−0.324***	0.056	−0.419***	0.059	−0.343***	0.057

* p < .05. **p < .01. *** p < .001.

Source: ACL 1986–2002.