Does Parental Divorce Affect Adolescents' Cognitive Development? Evidence from Longitudinal Data

Abstract

In this paper we analyse data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 toinvestigate whether experiencing parental divorce during adolescence reduces measuredcognitive ability. To account for the potential endogeneity of parental divorce we employ adifference-in-differences model that relies on observing teenagers' outcomes before and afterdivorce. We find that parental divorce does not negatively affect teenagers' cognitivedevelopment. Our results also suggest that cross-section estimates overstate the detrimentaleffect of parental divorce.

Keywords: difference in differences, cognitive development, divorce

JEL Classification: J12