@article{b59f6817e8c645639b8a5a97262c633c,
title = "Parental divorce is not uniformly disruptive to children{\textquoteright}s educational attainment",
abstract = "Children whose parents divorce tend to have worse educational outcomes than children whose parents stay married. However, not all children respond identically to their parents divorcing. We focus on how the impact of parental divorce on children{\textquoteright}s education varies by how likely or unlikely divorce was for those parents. We find a significant negative effect of parental divorce on educational attainment, particularly college attendance and completion, among children whose parents were unlikely to divorce. Families expecting marital stability, unprepared for disruption, may experience considerable adjustment difficulties when divorce occurs, leading to negative outcomes for children. By contrast, we find no effect of parental divorce among children whose parents were likely to divorce. Children of high-risk marriages, who face many social disadvantages over childhood irrespective of parental marital status, may anticipate or otherwise accommodate to the dissolution of their parents{\textquoteright} marriage. Our results suggest that family disruption does not uniformly disrupt children{\textquoteright}s attainment.",
keywords = "Causal analysis, Divorce, Educational attainment, Heterogeneity, Propensity score",
author = "Brand, {Jennie E.} and Ravaris Moore and Xi Song and Yu Xie",
note = "Funding Information: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. We thank Xiang Zhou for valuable consultation and Elizabeth Thomson for useful comments on a prior version of this manuscript. We benefited from facilities and resources provided by the California Center for Population Research at University of California, Los Angeles, and Office of Population Research at Princeton University, which receive core support (Grants P2C-HD041022 and P2C-HD047879) from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. National Institutes of Health Grant R01 HD07460301A1 provided financial support for this research. Versions of this article were presented at the Center for Research on Inequality and the Life Course at Yale University, Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan, Department of Sociology at Stanford University, Population Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania, Office of Population Research at Princeton University, Center for Population and Development Studies at Harvard University, Center for Demographic and Social Analysis at the University of California, Irvine, International Sociological Association Research Committee on Social Stratification and Mobility (RC28) 2017 Spring Meeting, and Population Association of America 2017 Annual Meeting. The ideas expressed herein are those of the authors. Funding Information: We thank Xiang Zhou for valuable consultation and Elizabeth Thomson for useful comments on a prior version of this manuscript. We benefited from facilities and resources provided by the California Center for Population Research at University of California, Los Angeles, and Office of Population Research at Princeton University, which receive core support (Grants P2C-HD041022 and P2C-HD047879) from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. National Institutes of Health Grant R01 HD07460301A1 provided financial support for this research. Versions of this article were presented at the Center for Research on Inequality and the Life Course at Yale University, Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan, Department of Sociology at Stanford University, Population Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania, Office of Population Research at Princeton University, Center for Population and Development Studies at Harvard University, Center for Demographic and Social Analysis at the University of California, Irvine, International Sociological Association Research Committee on Social Stratification and Mobility (RC28) 2017 Spring Meeting, and Population Association of America 2017 Annual Meeting. The ideas expressed herein are those of the authors. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2019 National Academy of Sciences. All Rights Reserved.",
year = "2019",
month = apr,
day = "9",
doi = "10.1073/pnas.1813049116",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "116",
pages = "7266--7271",
journal = "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America",
issn = "0027-8424",
publisher = "National Academy of Sciences",
number = "15",
}