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Papercrossref-demography · 3/3/2026
Fertility Outcomes of Adult Children With Divorced Parents: Evidence From Population Data
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Using three-generation administrative data from the Netherlands, this study examines how parental divorce affects the fertility outcomes of adult children, finding that those from divorced families have lower completed fertility and higher rates of childlessness compared to those from continuously married families. The findings suggest this pattern is driven by adult children of divorce exiting marital or cohabiting unions earlier, with the resulting shorter relationship durations helping explain their reduced likelihood of having children. These results remain robust across multiple methodological checks, including treatment effect bounds, comparisons using parental death, and cousin fixed effects.

Abstract
Abstract Each year, a substantial proportion of children experience the divorce of their parents. Despite numerous studies examining the consequences of parental divorce across various aspects of children's well-being in childhood, evidence of their family prospects in adulthood is scarce. Using administrative data from the Netherlands that spans three generations, we provide the first evidence based on population data of completed fertility and childlessness of children whose parents divorced. Our results suggest that adult children from divorced families have lower completed fertility and more frequently remain childless than adult children from continuously married families. Our findings support the hypothesis that adult children from divorced families exit marital or cohabiting relationships earlier than adult children from continuously married families, and the shorter duration of these unions contributes to explaining their lower likelihood of having first-order or higher order births. These results are robust to treatment effect bounds, using parental death as a source of parental loss, and cousin fixed effects.
NLDfertility.tfr