Consequences of Divorce for Childhood Education: Australia, Canada, and the USA, 1940-1990
Comparative Sociology, Vol. 8, pp. 105-146, 2009
42 Pages Posted: 24 Nov 2008
Abstract
Parental divorce imposes a small but significant educational disadvantage on American children. Does this generalize across nations and over time? We analyze representative national samples from Australia (n=29,443) and Canada (n=28,266), together with US General Social Survey data (n=32,380). Using OLS and logistic regression with robust standard errors, we estimate models controlling many potentially confounding variables. Divorce costs seven-tenths of a year of education, mainly by reducing secondary school completion. Importantly, it has become more damaging in recent cohorts. Because this holds in all three nations, the explanation probably lies in common circumstances of, and parallel changes in, modern industrial societies.
Keywords: divorce, education, cross-national, trends
JEL Classification: I20, I21, J12, J18, J24
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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