Family Policies and Children's School Achievement in Single‐ Versus Two‐Parent Families

Family Dynamics and Child Outcomes: An Overview of Research and Open Questions

“…This fits the intuition of weaker penalties when certain family behaviors are more common. However, other studies have found the opposite (Pong et al 2003;Kreidl et al 2017). An explanation is that in societies in which separation is uncommon, it is more often a solution to ending very troubled relationships and therefore more likely to be beneficial for the children.…”

“…However, many studies have reported cross-national variation in the strength of associations (e.g., Brolin Låftman 2010; Radl et al 2017, this Special Issue). A series of studies found that countries with policies aimed at equalizing the living conditions between different types of families had smaller family structure gaps in educational achievement (Pong et al 2003;Hampden-Thompson 2013;however, see Brolin Låftman 2010). Larger family structure differences have also been reported in economically more developed societies, where the nuclear family plays a more important role (Amato and Boyd 2014).…”

Child Well-Being and Sole-Parent Family Structure in the OECD

“…The largest positive effect size from an intact family was found in Norway and the United States, consistent with results also found by Breivik and Olweus (2005). TIMSS is also used as a data source by Pong et al (2003), but employing science scores in addition to mathematics scores. New Zealand and the United States rank last among countries in terms of large test score differences between single parent and two-parent families.…”

Unequal Family Lives

“…Cohen 2015). Family structure effects on economic outcomes -such as child poverty (Härkö nen 2017) -are readily modified by public policies, but findings suggesting that the effects on school performance can depend on social policies (Pong, Dronkers, and Hampden-Thompson 2003) or the features of the educational system (Bernardi and Radl 2014) support that public policies can address the consequences of family change more broadly. Family change need not inevitably lead to increasing inequality, and whether it does can depend on appropriate policy measures.…”

“…This change has not been even across these societies; it has started later and moved slower in some places (Härkö nen 2017). Hence, there are substantial cross-national differences in the percentage of nontraditional living arrangements (Pong, Dronkers, and Hampden-Thompson 2003). It has been demonstrated that parental divorce and growing up in a single-mother family have negative effects on children's well-being (McLanahan, Tach, and Schneider 2013), and several studies have tested to what extent these effects diverge between countries and over time (see Bernardi et al 2013 for a review).…”