Explaining Conflicting Results in Research on the Heterogeneous Effects of Parental Separation on Children’s Educational Attainment According to Social Background

Abstract

In recent years, researchers have become increasingly interested in how the effects of parental separation on children’s educational attainment vary with social background. On the one hand, parents with more resources might be better able to prevent possible adverse events like separation to affect their children’s outcomes. On the other hand, children from higher social backgrounds might have more resources to lose from a parental separation. A wide range of empirical studies on the issue have come to inconsistent conclusions, with support found for both perspectives. The aim of this paper is to monitor the influence of methodological and operational choices on the different results observed across studies. We focus on aspects such as the operationalization of key variables, the measurement of inequality in absolute and relative terms and the different strategies used to address endogeneity. We study the effects of parental separation on educational attainment for a cohort of British children born in 1970 and find that conclusions change depending on whether social background is measured using the mother’s or father’s characteristics and whether relative or absolute differences between groups are considered. Results are relatively insensitive to the operationalization of dependent variables and the treatment of missing data. When using data from Understanding Society instead of the British Cohort Study, results also did not change. We reflect on how these findings can explain the contradictory results from earlier studies on the topic, and how heterogeneity in the effects of parental separation by socio-economic background should be interpreted.

Unequal Family Lives

“…As mentioned, the few studies that have focused on how parental divorce and family structure effects differ by mother's education have obtained mixed findings (Bernardi and Boertien 2017b). First, substantial research shows that children's educational attainment suffers less from parental divorce if they have more highly educated mothers (Albertini and Dronkers 2009;Fischer 2007;Grätz 2015).…”

“…An alternative explanation for the conflicting findings on test scores is that the two studies on this outcome are based on data from different countries. There are several reasons to argue that the role of mothers' education may vary by country (Bernardi and Boertien 2017b;Mandemakers and Kalmijn 2014). For example, less-educated mothers may be less vulnerable to separationrelated declines in income when they live in generous welfare states where various social policies protect citizens against financial hardship (Leopold & Leopold, 2016).…”

“…Taking into account that joint physical custody is beneficial for children (Baude, Pearson, and Drapeau 2016), mother's education may be associated with smaller negative effects of parental divorce and single motherhood in countries with a high percentage of joint physical custody. Additionally, societal characteristics related to the outcome studied may affect the interplay between family structure, mother's education, and children's well-being (Bernardi and Boertien, 2017b). Mare (1993) argues that in a society with a high level of inequality in educational opportunity, only very talented children from poorly educated families may obtain higher education.…”

“…An in-depth of discussion of this issue can be found in Bernardi and Boertien (2017b). Two competing expectations can be formed in that regard.…”

“…This perspective maintains that children with less-educated mothers are less vulnerable to the negative effects of family structure given that their mothers are poor, have low psychological well-being, provide poor quality parenting, and their fathers have little involvement -regardless of whether their parents are together (Bernardi and Boertien 2017b). In other words, women with a low educational level are (Bernardi and Boertien 2017b) already in a bad situation that cannot become much worse. In contrast,…”