Do nonresident fathers compensate for a lack of household resources? : The associations between paternal involvement and children’s cognitive and educational assessments in the UK

This article investigated the associations between nonresident fathers’ involvement and cognitive and educational achievements in children. In particular, we tested the resource compensation model, which predicts that the involvement of nonresident fathers should compensate for the lack of household resources and that the effect should be strong, particularly in families with low resources. We use the British Millennium Cohort Study (n = 3445), in which 11-year-old children’s cognitive and educational assessments were measured using the British Ability Scale and household resources were measured using maternal education and occupation, family income, and number of books in the home (i.e., cultural capital). We found that the involvement of nonresident fathers was associated with higher scores more strongly in families with the lowest level of cultural capital, compared with others. However, nonresident fathers’ involvement was not associated with child scores more strongly in lower resource households than in higher resource households, when the resources were measured by maternal education and occupation and by family income. The results showed that, although the involvement of nonresident fathers might compensate for a lack of household resources, the effect tends to vary between resource types.Peer reviewe

Sosiaalisen aseman periytyvyys ja terveys – tulokset, teoriat ja tulevaisuus

Katsauksessa tarkastellaan terveyserojen yhteyttä ylisukupolviseen sosioekonomiseen liikkuvuuteen. Ilmiöiden välistä suhdetta on aiemmin lähestytty pääosin terveyserotutkimuksen näkökulmasta. Muu sosioekonomisen liikkuvuuden tutkimus on kehittynyt erillään tästä tutkimussuuntauksesta. Artikkelissa käydään läpi keskeiset terveyserotutkimuksen aihetta koskevat tulokset sekä pohditaan niiden merkitystä muun sosiaalisen liikkuvuuden tutkimuksen kannalta. Tutkimusten päätulos on, että sosiaalisen liikkuvuuden yhteys terveyseroihin selittyy vanhempien ja lasten asemien päävaikutuksilla. Terveyseronäkökulman olisi hyödyllistä omaksua muusta liikkuvuustutkimuksesta aiempaa tarkemmat yksilötason selitysmallit, vertailukelpoiset tavat operationalisoida sosioekonominen asema sekä tarkemmat mallinnusoletukset. Terveyserojen tutkimuksen antina muulle sosiaalisen liikkuvuuden tutkimukselle voisivat olla paremmat käytännöt elinkaaren sekä hieman yllättäen myös kulttuuristen tekijöiden konkreettisten vaikutusten arviointiin

The Heterogeneous Effects of Parental Unemployment on Siblings’ Educational Outcomes

The literature on the intergenerational effects of unemployment has shown that unemployment has short-term negative effects on children's schooling ambitions, performance and high school dropout rates. The long-term effects on children's educational outcomes, however, are mixed. One potentially important limitation of previous studies has been that they have ignored the heterogeneous effects of parental unemployment on children's education. We study the effects of parental unemployment on children's grade point average, enrollment into general secondary and tertiary education by comparing the effects according to the children's age of exposure and the parental level of education. We use high quality Finnish longitudinal register data and sibling fixed-effect models to obtain causal effects. We find that parental unemployment has negative effects on both children's educational enrollment and performance at the educational transitional periods when children are an adolescent but parental unemployment is not detrimental in early childhood. For general secondary but not for tertiary enrollment, children's poorer school performance due to parental unemployment explains the effect entirely. Parental unemployment is not affecting children general secondary enrollment or school performance among higher educated parents. However, children with a higher educated parent exposed to unemployment are less likely to enroll in tertiary education. The reduced amount of parental economic resources due to unemployment cannot explain any of these effects. This calls for other forms of support for children at crucial periods when educational decisions are made.Peer reviewe

Parental resources, sibship size and educational performance in 20 countries : Evidence for the compensation model

We study whether having several siblings decreases the level of educational performance of adolescents and whether this phenomenon can be compensated by other factors such as the economic or cultural resources of the parents. Based on this compensation model, parental resources should be associated with children’s educational attainments more strongly in families with a higher rather than a lower number of children. We analyzed the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) data from 20 Western countries and found that better family wealth, an increased level of parental education, and a higher parental occupational status were associated with increased educational attainments more strongly among 15-year-old children who have siblings than among children without siblings. The same effect was not found in the case of family cultural possessions. Although parental resources may matter more in larger families than in smaller families, some types of resources are more important than others regarding compensation

Educational test scores among adolescents in three-generational households in 20 countries

Grandparental presence is often found to associate with improved grandchild wellbeing. However, studies have shown that the effect is not always positive. This could be explained by the fact that in some circumstances grandparents compete with grandchildren over parental time resources. We studied the assumption using data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) from 20 Western countries (n=73,346 children at age 15). According to the results grandparental presence was associated with lower levels of parental involvement and decreased educational test scores among adolescents. Moreover, the results indicate that when the parental involvement is lower at the first place the grandparental presence tends to be associated with even weaker child outcomes. Finally, we found support that grandparental co-residence is a mediator of the association between parental involvement and child outcomes. These results are discussed with reference to the local resource competition model