Despite being more acceptable, divorce still as damaging to kids as before

London, July 9 : It may be more socially acceptable and common, but divorce today has the same kind of devastating effect on a kid's prospects in life as it did years ago.

The National Child Development Study was carried out in the UK, and as a part of it researchers tracked around 17,000 people born during one week in 1958 - a time when divorce was subject to much greater social stigma.

Their lives were then compared to people born in earlier and later years.

To their surprise, the researchers found that even with greater acceptance of divorce, the effect on kids' lives remained the same, reports the Telegraph.

"It might be expected that as divorce has become more commonplace, its effects might have reduced. Yet a comparison with children born in 1970 shows that this is not the case," the researchers write.

The boffins noted that kids from broken home are still likely to lack qualifications, be on benefits and suffer from depression.

"The estimates across cohorts are surprisingly similar in magnitude and not significantly different from one another," the NCDS team say.

Divorce, the report stated, still "has repercussions that reverberate through childhood and into adulthood."

It added: "Children from disrupted families tend to do less well in school and subsequent careers than their peers. They are also more likely to experience the break-up of their own partnerships."

ANI