Pew Study Finds Children of Divorced Parents More Likely to Remain at Bottom of Income Ladder as Adults

Family structure has an impact on a child’s economic mobility prospects, according to the Pew Economic Policy Group’s report "Family Structure and the Economic Mobility of Children." The group’s Economic Mobility Project found that only 26 percent of children of divorced parents who start in the bottom third of the income ladder move to the middle or top third as adults. This compares to 42 percent of children who are born to unmarried mothers and 50 percent of children with continuously married parents in the same income category.