都是為了孩子？父母離婚負面影響之重新評估

For the Sake of the Children?Re-Evaluating the Consequences of Parental Divorce in Taiwan

父母離婚是否會影響到子女的心理健康？國內利用長期追蹤調查資料來探討這類與「家庭過程」有關的問題之研究極少，且在探討父母離婚的影響時，未曾同時探討父母婚姻品質（或衝突互動）在其中究竟扮演何種角色。有鑑於此，本文利用「臺灣教育長期追蹤資料庫」（TEPS）來探究這個問題，並將樣本範圍限制在第二波調查時來自完整家庭的國中生，得到以下五點結論：一、青少年的焦慮、憂鬱等負面心理症狀的出現頻率，與父母婚姻品質高度相關。父母感情不佳，子女心理健康就差。二、對父母感情不佳的家庭來說，稍後幾年父母若離婚，子女負面心理症狀顯著減少；但對父母感情不佳但始終維持著婚姻的家庭來說，子女平均來說一直處於高焦慮狀態。三、父母離婚對子女心理健康的影響乃視原先婚姻品質差異而定。對父母感情不睦的家庭來說，雙親稍後完成離婚手續，可顯著減少子女的焦慮、憂鬱等心理症狀。對原先父母感情無異常的家庭來說，本分析則顯示離婚的負面影響未達顯著水準。四、對婚姻品質不佳的家庭來說，父母離婚後，劇烈爭吵的頻率並未減少，但最重要的是，離婚後之父母衝突不再對子女心理健康具有負面影響。相較之下，持續的婚姻內父母衝突，對子女心理狀態具有顯著負面影響，此因素乃為「離婚正效應」提供了部分解釋。五、對這些壓力鍋家庭來說，父母離婚可減少孩子與父親之間的親子衝突，也因而改善其心理健康。

Few efforts have been made to use domestic longitudinal data or to emphasize family processes to determine whether and/or how parental divorce affects the mental health of Taiwanese adolescents. In this paper, five conclusions are offered based on a review of data from the Taiwan Education Panel Survey: (a) adolescents report higher anxiety and distress levels when their parents suffer from low marital quality; (b) for low-quality marriages, parental divorce significantly reduces adolescent levels of distress, especially compared to youth whose parents stay in their marriages; (c) the effects of parental divorce on adolescent mental health is conditional on their parents' past marital quality; (d) in low-quality marriages, divorce does not decrease conflict levels between parents, but the negative effects of parental conflict on adolescent distress levels disappears once they decide to end their marriages; and (e) reduced father-child conflict partly explains why parental divorce benefits the well-being of children. In summary, ending low-quality marriages is beneficial to the mental health of adolescent children by removing the negative effects of parental conflict and decreasing father-child conflict frequency.