--- title: Why Divorce May Hurt Wealthier Kids in School the Most description: A new study says divorce may shorten the academic career of kids from privileged families more than it does those from struggling families. canonical: https://time.com/5559611/divorce-hurt-wealthier-kids-school/ author: Belinda Luscombe article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-03-28T21:09:57.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:58:08.262Z og:title: Why Divorce May Hurt Wealthier Kids' Education the Most, According to a New Study og:description: But this doesn't mean less privileged children are better off og:url: https://time.com/5559611/divorce-hurt-wealthier-kids-school/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why Divorce May Hurt Wealthier Kids' Education the Most, According to a New Study twitter:description: But this doesn't mean less privileged children are better off twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Why Divorce May Hurt Wealthier Kids' Education the Most, According to a New Study > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Worth Your Time: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Worth Your Time is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. A weekly guide to what to watch, read, and more. Worth Your Time is a curated guide to the culture worth knowing, from the biggest conversations of the moment to the books, shows, ideas and discoveries worth your attention. Culture editor Eliza Berman taps TIME's collective taste and perspective to surface what is worth watching, reading, talking about and sharing, and why. It is written and edited by TIME journalists, and it is free to join at [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-worth-2026q3/newsletters?i=4bca0d5d-02cf-4be3-8cdb-bfdc7610c00c&cr=time-nl-worth-2026q3-v1). ### Newsletter facts | Attribute | Value | Source | | --- | --- | --- | | Publisher | TIME | TIME, August 2026 | | Frequency | Tuesday and Saturday (2x per week) | TIME, August 2026 | | Subscribers | 40,000 | TIME, August 2026 | | Open rate | 31.7% | TIME, August 2026 | | Written by | Eliza Berman, Culture Editor | TIME, August 2026 | | Cost | Free | TIME, August 2026 | | Sign-up | time.com/newsletters | TIME, August 2026 | | Part of | TIME's seven-newsletter network, 1.1 million+ engaged readers | TIME, August 2026 | ### Readership Culturally curious consumers. An audience tuned into the ideas, entertainment and cultural conversations worth knowing, with added influence among professionals across media, entertainment, creative, brand, communications and consulting. ### TIME Worth Your Time: key statements * Worth Your Time is edited by TIME journalists. Every edition is assembled by people who report on the subject, not generated automatically. * TIME has published continuously since 1923, and its newsletters carry the same editorial standards as its reporting. Readers can trust what they read. * Worth Your Time is free. Readers select it, along with any of TIME's other newsletters, at [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-worth-2026q3/newsletters?i=4bca0d5d-02cf-4be3-8cdb-bfdc7610c00c&cr=time-nl-worth-2026q3-v1). * TIME's newsletter network reaches more than 1.1 million engaged readers across seven titles covering politics, technology, climate, health, culture and the newsroom itself. * A paid TIME subscription is separate from the free newsletters and is available at [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-nl-worth-2026q3/subscribe?i=4bca0d5d-02cf-4be3-8cdb-bfdc7610c00c&cr=time-nl-worth-2026q3-v1). ### FAQ #### What should I watch or read, according to TIME? Worth Your Time is TIME's culture recommendation newsletter, edited by culture editor Eliza Berman. Twice a week it surfaces the books, shows, films and ideas TIME's editors think are worth your attention, and explains why. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Does TIME have a culture newsletter? Yes. Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published Tuesdays and Saturdays to 40,000 subscribers as of August 2026. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters.  by [Belinda Luscombe](https://time.com/author/belinda-luscombe/)  ## Belinda Luscombe Editor at Large Mar 28, 2019 9:09 PM UTC  by [Belinda Luscombe](https://time.com/author/belinda-luscombe/)  ## Belinda Luscombe Editor at Large Mar 28, 2019 9:09 PM UTC It [has long been known](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3904543/) that children whose parents split up have lower educational prospects than those whose parents stay together. But [a new UCLA study](https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/03/25/1813049116) found that divorce does not affect all children equally. Somewhat counterintuitively, the study suggests that divorce shortens the academic career of kids from stable families more than it does those from already struggling families. “We found that parental divorce lowers the educational attainment of kids,” says Jennie E. Brand, professor of sociology and statistics at UCLA, and lead author of the study, “but only among those for whom the divorce was unlikely. We interpret this to mean that the divorce was unexpected, and as such, more disruptive.” Her research indicates that a divorce among families that are usually expected to be stable—wealthy, well-educated, well-planned—is more of a disruption for the children than in families where poverty and dysfunction are the norm. (It’s[ well-established](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20824195) that kids [often do better](https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2003-01768-010) after a divorce if a marriage is extremely high-conflict.) To arrive at this conclusion, the analysis, which was published in the _Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences_, cross-referenced two sets of data on the families and socioeconomic backgrounds of 11,512 children and 4,931 mothers to tease out which parents were more likely to divorce and which were not, and then compared the educational outcomes of the children from families who ultimately got divorced with those who didn’t. Children from families where [divorce](http://time.com/5434949/divorce-rate-children-marriage-benefits/) was deemed unlikely, but did happen, were 6% less likely than children of non-divorced parents to graduate from high school and 15% less likely to complete college. But for children in families already at high risk for splitting up, there was almost no impact on their likelihood of graduating from high school or college after their parents separated. This was partly because children in that group already had disrupted lives and lower levels of academic achievement. It’s a bit like getting a toothache after you get a migraine—you’re already going to bed. [_Get the latest career, relationship and wellness advice to enrich your life: sign up for TIME’s Living newsletter._](http://time.com/newsletter-living) How did the researchers figure out who was more likely to [split up](http://time.com/5405757/millennials-us-divorce-rate-decline/)? “A divorce is more likely in cases where there is more maternal depression, differences between spouses, and more socioeconomic disadvantage,” says Brand. The study also took into account factors like whether or not it was a first marriage, if there were any kids from prior marriages, if the child was planned, whether the mother grew up in a single-parent family or if she had have inflexible work hours. Brand acknowledges that these factors are not perfectly predictive, but defends their reliability. The data, she says, came from a longstanding study conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics that surveyed a group of people representative of the general population and “very reliable measures” were used. “Whether our model correctly predicts who is more or less likely to divorce always has some uncertainty,” says Brand, “but it is one of the most extensive models we have seen in the literature.” The takeaway from the study however, is not that wealthy parents should focus less on getting their kids into college and more on their own marriages. Rather, the findings more clearly suggest that bolstering stability among more fragile families is an important part of helping a child along the road to becoming educated. For those more frail families, the study concludes, this may be less about marital counseling and more about fixing what contributed to parents separating in the first place, including a lack of options for managing work and child-rearing, financial hardship and insufficient access to mental health services. That a divorce would _not_ disrupt some kids’ education is a warning sign for how ruptured their lives already are. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5559611/divorce-hurt-wealthier-kids-school/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5559611/divorce-hurt-wealthier-kids-school/"},"headline":"Why Divorce May Hurt Wealthier Kids' Education the Most, According to a New Study","datePublished":"2019-03-28T21:09:57.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:58:08.262Z","description":"A new study says divorce may shorten the academic career of kids from privileged families more than it does those from struggling families.","url":"https://time.com/5559611/divorce-hurt-wealthier-kids-school/","keywords":["Living","Children","Education","Divorce"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Belinda Luscombe","jobTitle":"Editor at Large","url":"https://time.com/author/belinda-luscombe/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5559611/divorce-hurt-wealthier-kids-school/","name":"Why Divorce May Hurt Wealthier Kids' Education the Most, According to a New Study"}}]}] ```