Divorce, socioeconomic status, and children's cognitive-social competence at school entry

All 115 kindergarteners in a suburban school district were evaluated with an extensive battery of intellectual, academic, social, and adaptive behavior measures to determine the predictive significance of single-parent status on school-entry competencies. Divorce was found to add significant amounts of independent variance to the socioeconomic status predictions of several criteria, specifically those relating to social and academic competence. Both single-parent status and SES were more powerful predictors than other family background, developmental history, and health variables.