Family Structure in Childhood and Educational Attainment

Abstract

is study aims to investigate the eect of single parenthood on the childrens educational attainment, and whether the eect changes over time. e dataset used in this study comprised data from the Japanese General Social Survey Cumulative Data 2000-2003. e main ndings are as follows: 1 People from single-parent families show a lower level of educational attainment than those from two-parent families with regard to advancement to both high school and college. 2 In terms of advancement to college, the disparity was considerable. 3 Although single-father families are better o economically than single-mother families, there is little dierence between them in the levels of childrens educational attainment. 4 e eect of single parenthood cannot be fully attributed to low levels of household income at age 15, which suggests that noneconomic factors should be examined in future inquiries.