Evidence Seems to Indicate That Children in Single-parent Families Are More Likely to
This commodity is part of a newPedagogy Nextseries on the state of the American family unit . The total series will appear in our Bound 2015 outcome to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1965 release of Daniel Patrick Moynihan's report "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action" (generally referred to as the Moynihan Report).
An unabridged version of this article is available here.
When Daniel Patrick Moynihan raised the issue of family construction half a century ago, his business was the increase in black families headed by women. Since then, the share of children raised in single-parent families in the U.s. has grown beyond racial and ethnic groups and with it evidence regarding the bear upon of family structure on outcomes for children. Contempo studies have documented a sizable achievement gap between children who alive with a single parent and their peers growing up with two parents. These patterns are cause for concern, as educational achievement is a key driver of economic prosperity for both individuals and order as a whole.
But how does the U.South. situation compare to that of other countries around the earth? This essay draws on data from the 2000 and 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment studies to compare the prevalence of single-parent families and how family construction relates to children's educational accomplishment across countries. The 2012 data confirm that the U.S. has about the highest incidence of unmarried-parent families among developed countries. And the educational achievement gap between children raised in single-parent and two-parent families, although present in virtually all countries, is particularly pronounced in the U.Southward.
Since 2000, at that place accept been substantial changes in achievement gaps by family construction in many countries, with the gap widening in some countries and narrowing in others. The U.S. stands out in this analysis as a country that has seen a substantial narrowing of the educational achievement gap betwixt children from single-parent and two-parent families. These varying trends, and the blueprint for the U.S. in detail, confirm that family structure is past no ways destiny. Ample evidence indicates the potential for enhancing family environments, regardless of their makeup, to improve the quality of parenting, nurturing, and stimulation, and promote healthy kid development.
Evidence on Family Construction
The event of family structure on child outcomes is a much-studied subject, and many researchers, including Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur (Growing up with a Unmarried Parent, 1994), have explored the potentially agin effects of single parenting on children. Single parents tend to have fewer financial resource, for example, limiting their power to invest in their children's evolution. Single parents may also have less time to spend with their children, and partnership instability may bailiwick these parents to psychological and emotional stresses that worsen the nurturing environs for children.
Documented disadvantages of growing up in single-parent families in the United states of america include lower educational attainment and greater psychological distress, too as poor adult outcomes in areas such as employment, income, and marital condition. Disadvantages for children from single-parent families have likewise been documented in other countries, including Canada, Frg, Sweden, and the Uk. Just cross-country evidence has been difficult to obtain, in part because of differing methods for measuring family structure and child outcomes. The PISA studies, which asked representative samples of fifteen-year-olds in each participating country the same questions nearly their living arrangements, provide a unique opportunity to accost this challenge.
At the same fourth dimension, it should be noted that the descriptive patterns documented here practise not necessarily capture a causal effect of living in a single-parent family. Decisions to become divorced, finish cohabitation, or conduct a kid outside a partnership are likely related to other factors of import for child development, making it difficult to split up out the influence of family structure. For example, severe stress that leads to family breakup might well have continued without the breakup and have led to worse outcomes for a kid had the family remained intact. If unmarried-parent families differ from two-parent families in unmeasured ways, then those differences may be the underlying cause of any disparities in children'due south outcomes. It is fifty-fifty conceivable that problems a child has in schoolhouse may contribute to family breakdown, rather than beingness a result of it.
In addition to comparing the raw gap in educational achievement between children from unmarried- and ii-parent families, I nowadays results that adapt for other groundwork differences, including the number of books at home, parental educational activity, and immigrant and linguistic communication background. This blazon of analysis can provide useful information virtually the reasons educational accomplishment varies with family structure. It is of import to keep in mind, however, that fifty-fifty these adjusted associations between child outcomes and family construction may well have causes other than family structure itself.
The Data
The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an internationally standardized assessment given every 3 years since 2000 past the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). PISA tests the math, scientific discipline, and reading achievement of representative samples of 15-year-old students in each participating country. This analysis is limited to the 28 countries that were OECD members and PISA participants in 2000.
PISA collects a rich array of background information in educatee questionnaires. Students report whether a mother (including stepmother or foster mother) commonly lives at home with them, and similarly a father (including stepfather or foster father). By including students living with pace- and foster parents, the group of students identified as living in two-parent families will include some students who have experienced a family separation. Information technology is possible that, as a result, any differences between students from unmarried- and from two-parent families volition be understated in the analysis. Evidence from 2000, the ane year for which it is possible to carve up out students living with stepparents, suggests that this is indeed the example. In the international sample, the achievement difference would be 16 points rather than 14 points if stepparents were excluded from the two-parent families.
I limit the analysis to students who live with either one or two parents, excluding students living with neither parent and students for whom information on either the father or the mother is missing. On average beyond countries, ane.6 percent of students with available data from 2012 do not live with any parent (ane.ix pct in the United States) and 7 percentage of the full pupil population (11 percent in the United States) take missing data on whether a mother and/or father lives at home with them. My total 2012 sample contains more than 230,000 students or virtually 8,500 students per country on average. The U.S. sample consists of more 4,300 students living in either single-parent (pupil lives with either mother or begetter only) or two-parent (student lives with both mother and father) families.
Single-Parent Families and Student Accomplishment
The vast majority of single-parent families are families with a single mother. On average across countries, 86 percentage of single-parent families are headed by single mothers. In the United States, the figure is 84 per centum.
To compare student achievement across countries, I focus on test scores in math, which are nearly readily comparable across countries. (Results for science and reading achievement in 2012, documented in the unabridged version of this written report, are quite similar.) In each subject field, PISA measures achievement on a scale that has a student-level standard departure of 100 examination-score points across OECD countries. That is, any achievement differences tin be interpreted as percentages of a standard deviation in exam scores, with one standard deviation in examination-score performance representing between three and four years of learning on average. To illustrate, the average departure in math achievement between the 2 class levels in our sample with the largest shares of 15-year-olds (9th and 10th grade) is 28 test-score points, which is a niggling more than ane-quarter of a standard departure and roughly equivalent to one year of learning or one class level.
In nearly all countries, students living in single-parent families accept lower accomplishment on boilerplate than students living in two-parent families (see Figure 2a). In the United States, the average raw accomplishment deviation in math between students living in ii-parent families and students living in single-parent families is 27 points, or roughly one grade level. The United states of america is i of six countries with achievement differences larger than 25 points. Belgium has the largest disparity in math achievement by family unit structure, at 35 points, followed past the Netherlands (29), and Poland, Japan, and the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland (27 to 28). On average across the 28 countries, students living in single-parent families score 18 points lower than students living in two-parent families.
There are exceptions, nonetheless. Mexico shows no accomplishment deviation by family structure, and the difference is statistically insignificant in Portugal besides. The achievement difference is below x points in Portugal (6), Italian republic (7), Republic of austria (8), and Germany (9).
The United States stands out in this effigy in terms of the prevalence of single-parent families and the associated achievement gap. Belgium and the Netherlands exhibit the highest achievement disparities, although unmarried parenthood is non peculiarly prevalent in these countries. The southern European countries (Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain) stand up out as places with relatively depression achievement disparities and relatively low prevalence of single parenthood. The German language-speaking countries (Austria, Germany, and Switzerland) prove similarly depression accomplishment disparities despite their higher prevalence of single parenthood. The Asian countries (Korea and Japan) accept lower levels of single-parent families merely higher achievement disparities. The Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden) all have similarly middling levels of accomplishment disparities despite varying levels of unmarried-parenthood incidence. Finally, the eastern European countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland) take quite unlike achievement disparities despite the consistently high incidence of unmarried-parent families.
The four quadrants carve up the countries according to the degree of impact the prevalence of single-parent families is likely to have over the long term. For countries in the pinnacle right jail cell that have loftier values on both variables—the Usa being the leading example—single parenthood may constitute a major concern for the next generation. It is quite prevalent, and the associated achievement gap is quite big. In countries in the bottom right jail cell, such every bit Hungary and United mexican states, single parenthood is also quite mutual, merely the achievement disparity is less severe. While unmarried parenthood is less prevalent in the countries in the summit left jail cell, such equally kingdom of the netherlands and Ireland, the achievement deviation is big and may still constitute a serious problem for affected students. Finally, in the lesser left jail cell, for countries, including Italian republic and Spain, where single parenthood is less prevalent and accomplishment disparities relatively small, there is less cause for concern.
Adjusting for Groundwork Differences
The accomplishment differences reported then far are raw differences, non adapted for groundwork differences between students from single- and 2-parent families. These raw differences may capture effects of disadvantaged backgrounds, as singled-out from any contained effects of single parenthood. To provide a sense of the extent to which this might be the case, we next control for differences in family unit background beyond family structure.
In item, we hold constant the number of books in the pupil's dwelling (as a proxy for socioeconomic groundwork), the highest pedagogy level of the parent(due south), immigration status (native, first-, and second-generation immigrants), and whether the national linguistic communication is spoken at home. All these measures are strongly associated with pupil achievement, and beyond countries, books in the habitation and parental education tend to exist negatively associated with single parenthood. In the cross-sectional data, though, we cannot detect whether some of these measures are preexisting characteristics of the families, in which case they stand for potential biases, or whether they are an outcome of single parenthood.
Controlling for background factors has a substantial touch on on the estimated accomplishment disparity between students living in single- and two-parent families (see Effigy 2c). In the Usa, the accomplishment disparity declines by more 60 percent, from 27 to 10 points. On average across all countries, the disparity is reduced by half, from 18 to 9 points. While the United States still features above-average achievement differences by family construction after the adjustment, in absolute terms it differs less markedly from the international boilerplate. The countries with the largest adapted accomplishment gap by family unit groundwork are Belgium (22), Poland (21), and holland (17). In 12 countries, the adjusted accomplishment gap is below five points, or less than one-half the adjusted achievement gap in the United States. In seven countries, afterward the adjustment, the achievement disparity by family unit construction is no longer statistically meaning. In Korea and Portugal, the adapted relationship even turns negative.
With the exception of United mexican states and Switzerland, where decision-making for background factors hardly affects the results, the adjusted gaps are smaller in all countries than in the initial analysis. In the bulk of countries (xix out of 28), the reduction in the achievement disparity between students in unmarried- and ii-parent families from controlling for observed factors is in the range of 40 to 80 percent of the raw difference in achievement.
The groundwork factors do not contribute equally to the reduction in the achievement gap, however. In fact, controlling only for the number of books at dwelling reduces the achievement gap by family construction across all countries to 9 points. Past contrast, clearing status and language spoken at home hardly contribute to the reduction. This design is quite like in the The states. That is, in the international sample, roughly one-half of the achievement difference between students living in unmarried- and two-parent families but reflects differences in socioeconomic status every bit captured by the number of books in the home.
With the bachelor data, information technology is impossible to determine whether the relative lack of books in single-parent homes generally reflects a preexisting characteristic of the families or whether it is (at least partly) an outcome of the family unit structure. The number of books may to some extent reverberate the number of people living in the dwelling. Effigy 2b presents achievement differences between students living in single- and 2-parent families, controlling for parental pedagogy, immigration status, and linguistic communication spoken at home, but not for books at dwelling house. At nineteen points, this alternative adjusted accomplishment gap in the United States lies roughly midway betwixt the raw difference (27) and the gap as adjusted for books at home as well as the other characteristics (10). On average across countries, the accomplishment gap in this model is 15 points. Thus, while decision-making for books at home may well capture in part the consequence of family structure, some of the overall achievement gap clearly reflects preexisting differences.
Of course, the groundwork factors considered here by no means capture all relevant differences in family groundwork, although they take been found to be particularly relevant for student achievement. The adjusted achievement gaps by family structure higher up may partly reflect additional differences in family groundwork rather than family structure solitary.
Changes Over Time
Finally, I clarify trends in the patterns over time. To do and so, I perform the aforementioned analyses as to a higher place with information from
the 2000 PISA study, when the first of these surveys was administered. (Run into unabridged version for details.) Over the period from 2000 to 2012, the share of 15-year-olds living in single-parent families increased from xviii to 21 percent in the United States, and from 12 to 14 percent on average in the international sample, although there are substantial differences beyond countries. The boilerplate achievement gap in the international sample besides increased past 33 percent, from 13.6 to 18 points.
Conclusions
Single parenthood is prevalent in virtually all OECD countries, simply the share of single-parent families is specially high in the United States. Students from single-parent families perform significantly lower in math than students from two-parent families in nearly all countries. To a large extent, however, this accomplishment gap reflects differences in socioeconomic background, equally measured past the number of books at dwelling and parental didactics, rather than family construction alone. The United States belongs to the group of countries with the largest achievement gaps past family construction, although the United States was more exceptional in this regard in 2000 than in 2012. While the achievement gap between students from single- and ii-parent families increased in most other OECD countries over the menstruum, it declined in the United states.
This variation in trends shows that achievement disparities past family construction are by no means destiny. Ample testify reveals that information technology is possible to heighten family unit environments to improve the quality of parenting, nurturing, and stimulation, and thereby promote good for you child development. Future research should investigate to what extent factors such equally differing welfare systems, child support facilities, divorce regulations, and other state characteristics may prevarication backside the differences in achievement gaps between students from single- and two-parent families across countries and over time.
Ludger Woessmann is professor of economics at the University of Munich and managing director of the Ifo Center for the Economics of Pedagogy.
Last updated January 27, 2015
Source: https://www.educationnext.org/international-look-single-parent-family/
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