Camron Devor, Iowa State University alumna of sociology, found documented information on enrollment in college, but nothing about parental divorce’s effect on graduate school enrollment and completion.

This prompted her to head a new research study at ISU that found children of divorce are less likely to receive a graduate degree.

For the study, Devor along with co-authors Cassandra Dorius, assistant professor of human development and family studies, and Susan Stewart, professor of sociology, used a large national longitudinal data set that has been ongoing since 1997.

The data was gathered by the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Researchers analyzed 15 years of data that tracked thousands of people as they aged from youth to adulthood. The last round of data was gathered when the youth was between ages 26 and 32.

Researchers found that 27 percent of children with divorced parents had a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 50 percent of children with married parents.

“It is important to understand the relationship between divorce and graduate education,” Stewart said. “A college degree is pretty much a requirement and a graduate degree is increasingly becoming a requirement.”

The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts jobs requiring a master’s degree to grow by 17 percent between 2016 and 2026.

“Even if you get a degree in education or in social work you need a graduate degree to move up,” Stewart said.

Stewart’s role in the research was to read drafts, guide Devor towards literature that may be helpful and help with data analysis. They also worked together on the coding.

The authors found that married parents are more educated than divorced parents, and there was a substantial difference in household income.

“Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce. After divorce, both men and women take a hit financially. Especially for women,” Stewart said.

College students also take a hit financially as child support for children of divorce is cut off when the child turns 18 years old. As Stewart said, turning 18 does not necessarily mean a person is financially stable.

Stewart said another reason for these statistics may be because children from divorce feel less entitled to earn a college education. They may not be exposed to as wide of a network of people who have completed college.

“It can be very complicated when you’re dealing with family background and parent’s marital status, such as if they divorce, then cohabit and get remarried. Tracking all of that is really difficult,” said Stewart.

Nearly 50 percent of all marriages in the United States end in divorce and there is no evidence that these rates are declining.

“This is something that modern families live with. If this isn’t affecting you, it might be affecting a friend or a partner, or your future spouse may come from a family with divorce in it,” Stewart said.