A new research has revealed that children from rich families are likelier to show behavioral problems, like aggression and defiance, after their parents' separation.
Researchers from Georgetown University and the University of Chicago also found that moving from a single-parent family into a stepparent family improved children's behavior in higher-income families but not in lower-income families.
Lead author Rebecca M. Ryan said that the findings suggested that family changes affected children's behavior in higher-income families more than children's behavior in lower-income families, for better and for worse.
The researchers suggested that this may be because families with few economic resources at the outset might not experience as dramatic a change in economic circumstance when parents separate as those with greater initial resources.
Ryan noted that the findings suggested that both economic context and children's age were important to consider in understanding the effects of family structure on children.
She continued that while economic resources in many ways buffer children, higher initial family income doesn't appear to be a protective factor when parents separate, at least for younger children.
The study is published in the journal Child Development.