Children of Divorce, Smaller Families: The Hidden Link Weighing on Birth Rates

In Europe and North America, two trends continue to dominate public debate: fewer long-lasting marriages and fewer children. They are often treated as separate phenomena, but a new study suggests they may be deeply intertwined. Linking these two worlds is a study published in Demography, authored by Silvia Palmaccio (INSPIRE – the Invernizzi Center for Social Policy Impact Research and Evaluation and the Dondena Centre for Research on Social Dynamics and Public Policy, Bocconi University), Deni Mazrekaj (Utrecht University, Netherlands), and Kristof De Witte (KU Leuven, Belgium), which analyzes for the first time on a large scale how parental divorce influences the fertility of children once they reach adulthood.

From the demographic context to the research question

The starting point is well known: fertility rates have fallen below replacement level in nearly all Western countries, while the proportion of children experiencing parental separation has grown steadily.

Yet, as the authors note, a central issue has surprisingly remained in the shadows:

“the influence of parental divorce on other family outcomes, such as fertility, remains underinvestigated” (p. 292)

The literature has focused primarily on the immediate effects of divorce. Much less was known about how that experience shapes family trajectories in the long term. It is precisely this gap that Palmaccio, Mazrekaj, and De Witte seek to fill.

An unprecedented methodology: tracking a lifetime

The strength of the study lies in the quality of the data and the empirical strategy. The researchers use administrative records covering the entire population of the Netherlands, tracking over 1.7 million individuals from birth through age 40. This allows them to observe not only early intentions or events, but the entire reproductive cycle.

But the size of the dataset alone is not enough. The real challenge is distinguishing the effect of divorce from that of other invisible family factors, such as conflicts, socioeconomic characteristics, or inherited personal traits.

To address this problem, the study constructs a comprehensive and coherent methodological framework. First, it compares those who experienced divorce with those who lost a parent to death, an event that also creates family absence but with a smaller selection bias. In parallel, it uses comparisons between cousins to isolate what is shared within extended families, including genetic and cultu l elements.

Added to these approaches is a robustness test based on Oster’s methodology, which measures how strong any unobserved factors would need to be to nullify the results. The picture that emerges is remarkably stable: even assuming a significant weight of unobserved variables, the conclusions remain essentially unchanged.

Although, as the authors themselves acknowledge, this is not definitive causal proof, it is one of the most robust analyses ever produced on this topic.

The result: fewer children, more often none

Growing up in a divorced family is associated with a lower probability of having children and a reduction in the total number of children. The study summarizes this clearly:

“Adult children from divorced families have lower completed fertility and more frequently remain childless” (p. 291)

In concrete terms, by age 40, men who experienced their parents’ divorce have a significantly higher probability of being childless. The association  is also present for women, although it is more modest . Overall, both groups have smaller families compared to their peers who grew up with parents in stable marriages.

Shorter relationships, fewer opportunities to become parents

To explain this finding, Palmaccio, Mazrekaj, and De Witte explore several possible mechanisms, but one in particular stands out: the duration of relationships. Those who grow up in divorced families tend, on average, to enter and exit relationships more quickly. And this, in turn, is associated with differences in reproductive choices.

 “The shorter duration of these unions contributes to explaining their lower likelihood of having first-order or higher-order births” (p. 291)

The point is not so much an explicit rejection of parenthood as it is less exposure to stable relationships in which having children becomes possible. Fertility, in this sense, appears deeply linked to the stability of unions.

An apparent paradox and a sign for the future

An interesting factor complicates the picture: some women with divorced parents become mothers earlier than others. But this earlier timing does not translate into larger families, because it is often followed by less enduring relationships.

Overall, the picture that emerges remains negative. And even though the study notes that the impact of divorce has diminished in more recent generations, the underlying mechanism does not disappear. The demographic crisis, therefore, is not merely an economic or cultural issue. It is also the result of family dynamics that are passed down over time, often in ways that are not immediately apparent.