Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
PROFESSOR BRYAN
RODGERS, PROFESSOR
JUDY DUNN,
DR LEON
FEINSTEIN AND
DR AMANDA
WADE
12 JULY 2006
Q20 Mr Chaytor: So to some extent
we are talking about historic factors rather than current factors?
Professor Rodgers: Yes. If you
look historically, for example, if you compare the different British
National Birth Cohort Studies, in the 1946 Birth Cohort that I
worked on, there were more children in that cohort whose parents
died than whose parents divorced. By the time of the 1958 Birth
Cohort Study there were many more divorces than parental deaths.
That is in 12 years. So, at that time and in the immediate post-war
period, you were seeing the effects of very, very rapid changes
in divorce rates.
Q21 Mr Chaytor: Was the immediate
post-war period the period which showed the most rapid change
in divorce rates?
Professor Rodgers: Through until
the early 1970s the divorce rate went up hugely. It multiplied
over a period of 20 years.
Q22 Mr Chaytor: So there have been
two peaks, the immediate post-war period and the mid-seventies
to mid-eighties, or two periods of rapid increase?
Professor Rodgers: You have got
to be careful about peaks. There is a post-war peak, which is
probably due to what happened after the war, people coming back
from the war and marriages not working out. There are also peaks
with changes in legislation.
Q23 Chairman: Making divorce easier.
Professor Rodgers: Yes, and in
all countries when no-fault divorce has been introduced you get
this sharp peak, people who have probably been separated for some
time and, finally, their divorce comes through. Aside of those
peaks, you just see this very, very general trend across countries
of increasing rates.
Q24 Mr Chaytor: In terms of the other
question, the relationship with social class, is there a relationship?
Is that constant across English speaking countries?
Professor Rodgers: It is not as
strong as people imagine. If you broaden it out to take account
of financial circumstances, some sense of, say, occupation as
indicating social class, or education, people's educational qualifications
are not terribly strong predictors of divorce. There is a tendency
to have high divorce rates for those of lower education. It gets
more complicated when you view it as couples. You find mis-matches
where you have got one highly qualified partner and the other
is not, so the nuances are quite interesting in that area, but
the general trends are not as strong as a lot of people imagine.
There is some evidence from one of the British Birth Cohorts,
the 1958 Birth Cohort, which might explain why there is some confusion
as to how strong that relationship is of financial circumstances,
and it appears from longitudinal studies that families that divorce,
their financial circumstances deteriorate before the divorce and
it is quite marked. It is not a finding that has been reported
on very often, but where it has been it has been very striking.
It may be that if you measured the financial circumstances of
families immediately before they separate, you might see a much
stronger relationship than you do for much longer term predictors
such as people's educational background. I have not seen anyone
pursue that idea to see how that comes about. Is it because families
hit hard times, unemployment, gambling problems, drug problems?
All sorts of things might explain that, but it is not just a simple,
stable relationship, there is a dynamic to that, which, as I mentioned,
is this marked decline prior to a separation.
Q25 Mr Chaytor: Moving on to the
specific educational consequences of this, what are the major
consequences in terms of educational achievements or performance
of children in school as a result of separation or divorce? Accepting
that there is no average, what is the range of impacts that have
been identified?
Professor Rodgers: I do not know
if Leon or Judy want to dive in, but I will just say something
and get it out quickly. It is partly in response to Rob Wilson's
question to Amanda, and that is when you talked about is it better
for families to stay together. There are two sets of quite interesting
evidence, one of which relates to educational outcomes, that partly
answer your question. There have been studies in the UK and also
in the United States that have reported the educational progress
of children in terms of measured test scores at different ages.
They have looked at the kids who experienced parental separation
through the course of that longitudinal follow up and what is
interesting about those studies is that they are quite consistent
in showing that the gap between the kids who experienced separation
and those who did not, which I think Judy has made the point is
not huge, it is not an enormous difference and there are huge
diversities within those groups, but that gap that you see is
actually present before the family separated, and it is about
the same order of magnitude before the family split up as it is
afterwards. When you ask the question, "What is the effect
of separation?", you look at that and you think, "Is
there any, because the gap was there before as it was afterwards?"
I think partly with Rob Wilson's question one of the issues that
arises is that, although the two groups the show this gap before
and afterwards, individuals will move around, and I think that
was part of Amanda's response to that, saying for some families
that separate there may be a relief, for other families it could
be quite disadvantageous for the kids to experience that separation.
My best guess at an individual level is that some of the kids
will show a deterioration in their school performance but other
kids might actually show gains when their parents split up. Overall
it does not look as though as a group there is a big change as
a result of that, and there is a directly parallel example of
what I think illustrates the same point when you look at very
long-term outcomes, things I have studied myself in adults. In
two of the British National Birth Cohorts we have looked at kids
who actually spent their entire childhoods with two parents, two
original parents who lived together all the way through their
childhoods but then the parents divorced later, and those kids
do just as badly in the long-term as the kids whose parents separated
whilst they were children. That brings it back to that very original
point I made that when you talk about the effects of separation
on the kids you have got to be very careful about your terminology
and what that implies. As I say, it may be that for individual
kids this separation has a bad effect, on some it has a good effect,
but overall they seem to be, on average, pretty much where they
were before the families split up.
Q26 Mr Chaytor: So why are we here
this morning? I am just wondering whether we should all go home,
if you are saying there is no relationship that can be identified.
Professor Rodgers: The gap, as
I say, is there before and that to me is the interesting question.
Where does it come from?
Q27 Mr Chaytor: The other question
is what is the cause of the gap that is there before?
Professor Rodgers: I think all
the things that have been mentioned so far and that Leon particularly
has talked about in terms family dynamics, in education, the parents'
interest in the kids' educational progress and their relationship
with the kids, and these things follow a long-term course rather
than just a response to family separation. My background is partly
in epidemiology as well as psychology, and when Leon talks about
a risk factor I just see that as an opportunity to do something.
A lot of my work now is built around policy implications of research
and even if X does not cause directly an outcome, if you know
that there is a group of kids there who have poorer outcomes on
average than a group of kids over there, my next step is to say:
what do you do about it? I do not really give a hoot what the
direct cause of that difference is if you can do something about
it. So, it is getting that broader understanding, I think Leon
described it as a sign or an indicator, and it is visible. You
know who these kids are, you do not have to go ferreting around
to work it out, and also it is now 25% of them, and that is a
big change, going back to a time when it might have been 5 or
10% of kids.
Q28 Chairman: 5 or 10% of kids?
Professor Rodgers: I am sorry?
Q29 Chairman: The two comparisons
you are making.
Professor Rodgers: The risk factor
now of parental separation exists in 25% of kids. Even if the
disadvantage associated with that has not changed historically,
the prevalence of the risk factor has changed enormously. If your
interest is in policy and prevention, as a marker it becomes more
useful.
Q30 Chairman: Reading between the
lines of what you and Dr Wade have said, basically, if a family
is happy, whatever kind of family it is, if there is a good relationship
and a supportive family unit there, that is the crucial thing
whether it is within marriage or without marriage.
Professor Rodgers: Yes. Quite
a lot of them are not, and that is the point, what do you do about
it?
Q31 Chairman: Perhaps we ought to
do more research on what makes happy families.
Professor Rodgers: You also do
stuff on families that do separate, and so we know there are groups
at risk. We know that on average the kids do not do as well from
this group. What do we do about it?
Professor Dunn: You can look at
the children who, in spite of the fact that they have gone through
these risks, are going okay. That is one exercise we have just
been doing in our study based in ALSPAC 1, and the three factors
that stand out are a good, warm affectionate relationship with
the mother, a good, warm affectionate relationship with the non-resident
father and the mother's depression, the mother's mental state.
Those three factors, if they are working in favour, as it were,
and they are going the right way, 70% of the children who have
been through this painful constellation of family changes are
doing fine.
Q32 Mr Wilson: Does that mean 30%
are not doing fine?
Professor Dunn: More than. I would
have to show you the graphs and things, yes, but we were comparing
children with a trajectory where the risk of behaviour problems
was going up with children whose trajectory stayed low in terms
of adjustment problems.
Dr Wade: You were saying you are
beginning to wonder why you are here, and looking at this.
Q33 Chairman: David is!
Dr Wade: What I wanted to say
was that children's outcomes and educational attainments are one
thing and clearly what they attain educationally is very important
both for their own futures and, if you like, for the future of
the nation, but that is about the future, and there is also the
question of the present, and I think it is important to look at
what can schools do for children who are living through difficult
circumstances. School is somewhere where children spend a majority
of their time and I think there is a great deal that schools can
offer to children who are facing all sorts of adversities, but
also it is quite important to listen to what children have to
say about what matters and, again, what children want from their
schools can differ. For some children who are living through adversity
school is one place they can go to where they can feel normal,
where they can forget about family problems, where they can focus
on other things, and then there are another group of children
who find it extremely difficult to cope with school because they
are so overwhelmed by their problems, and I think that is where
you can begin to think: what resources can we base in schools
that might help children in those sorts of situations?
Dr Feinstein: To highlight a point
Bryan made earlier about transitions, there is this possibly two,
three year period of vulnerability; so that even if the long-run
effect on educational achievement may not be very strong, there
is a very difficult short-term period which may lead in all kinds
of directions for different outcomes to do with mental health,
behaviour or other kinds of Every Child Matters outcomes.
I do not think I would want to say that because the average effect
on the population overall may be relatively small this is not
an area that we need to think about. I think from an Every
Child Matters point of view it is very important that the
school does recognise these features of development of the children
going through the school and recognise where there are issues
of family difficulty. Family breakdown is one indicator of difficulties
in the family environment, there are others, but the fact there
are others does not mean that schools should be let off the hook
in ignoring this one and thinking how do they provide support
and a context for adjustment for children where family breakdown
is occurring.
Q34 Mr Chaytor: Others may want to
come in on the question of what schools can do to support children
and mitigate the effects, but just summing-up what you have said
so far, would it be reasonably accurate to say that there are
a number of factors that are directly related to poor educational
performance or under achievement, which could be poverty, conflict,
violence within the home, with educational achievement of the
parents and lack of certain values within the family structure
which may be exacerbated by separation but that separation would
not be a key factor in under achievement? Is that an accurate
way of looking at it or not? The starting point for this morning's
session is the assumption that separation is an important factor.
That is why we are having the seminar on the session of separation
and not on poverty, or conflict, or parental abuse, or parental
level of achievement.
Dr Feinstein: I would say that
in the population as a whole family breakdown was not the key
explanatory factor for educational under achievement, but there
will be a substantial minority of children, we may be talking
about 0.5% of the population, for whom, nonetheless, it is a very
salient feature because it occurs in combination with other significant
risk factors, but it is not going to explain the great prevalence
of educational low performance.
Q35 Mr Wilson: I want to come back
on something that Professor Rogers said. You said that some children
have an educational gain from family breakdown in one of your
previous answers. Can you quantify that? Is it a small number,
is it a medium or is it a large number that have an educational
gain?
Professor Rodgers: You cannot
quantify the number of kids who would have that, but it is an
observation based on the fact that in a study, if you have a large
group that shows—
Q36 Mr Wilson: Is there a study?
Have you evidence based on a study that confirms your opinion
that some children have an educational gain from family breakdown?
Professor Rodgers: I am saying
that if the average stays the same and some have a loss, then
there must be some that have a gain. You cannot have the average
staying the same and some showing a loss. It is just not possible.
There must be a counter-balance.
Q37 Mr Wilson: I can see with the
explanations that have been given so far that some children may
well have a gain if they have got a violent parent, but I want
to understand what sort of numbers, what sort of percentage we
are talking about.
Professor Rodgers: You would have
to specify the degree of the shift. There are datasets that could
do it. What you would have to do is simply come up with a number.
Is it a fifth of a standard deviation, a third of a standard deviation
of attainment? You would have to specify some criterion for what
is considered to be a significant shift, up or down, and then,
sure, you could quantify it.
Q38 Mr Wilson: Does anybody else
have any evidence in terms of numbers that might benefit from
family breakdown?
Professor Dunn: It is a very complicated
question, because we have talked about separation as if that is
the end of the story, but, of course, of that 25% of children
whose parents separate, a lot of them spend a period of time with
a single parent and a lot of them gain a step-parent, they may
or may not be married but there is another adult in the family,
and each of those steps carries risks, which probably include
educational risks, so it is not a simple question.
Q39 Mr Wilson: I do not expect any
of the questions we ask this morning are going to be simple questions,
judging by the answers we are getting so far.
Dr Feinstein: I have seen studies
in the US, because there was this change in policy towards trying
to keep families together and researchers were interested in the
fact that if the father may be violent then what is the damage
going to be to the child of keeping the family unit together?
I could not quote you the findings of those studies but I know
people have looked at that and found substantial risks associated
with keeping families together where there are good reasons, from
the child's perspective possibly, for the family not to be held
together, but the prevalence will depend, taking that example,
on what kind of study you are looking at. If you do a study of
families where there is a violent father present, then you may
find very large negative effects of that violence on the child,
that will be a very large effect, but it is a small prevalence.
In the population as a whole, that might average out to not a
huge gap, but the thing is substantial in itself.
Chairman: Let us move on a little. Paul,
you want to look at the research evidence, not that we have not
been looking at the research evidence already.
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