According to a new study, children of divorced parents are likely to switch religion or completely stop believing in any religion.
Previous studies have found that divorce has an adverse effect on children. Divorced parents unintentionally leave their children mentally scarred, more often than not. Now studies have shown that divorce also affects a child's religious beliefs. A study conducted by a Baylor University sociologist found that children of divorced parents are likely to switch religion or completely stop believing in any religion. They are likely to disassociate themselves from any religious institution.
"You have to take into account the context," Uecker said. "People who are less religious are more likely to get divorced. And if the parents are of different religions or differing levels of religiosity from one another, they also are more likely to divorce. So if we ignore that, we're overstating the effects of divorce itself on religious outcomes."
The study, however, states that divorce in itself doesn't play as important a role in a person's religious life as previously stated by other studies. Researchers say that being the child of a single parent does not have any effect on private religious life.
One of the main reasons why parental divorce affects religious beliefs, researchers found, was that the child is separated from one parent and parents are considered the primary source of religious training for children. Incidents that follow after the divorce in a child's life also influence his or her religious beliefs.
Typically, a child of divorce parents stays with his or her mother, who may become depressed or angry with God, and "that may rub off on the child," Uecker said. The child "may have thought the marriage was ordained by God. When it ends, that could rock their world and have lasting effects."
The findings of the study were published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.
