The intergenerational transmission of educational attainment after divorce and remarriage

This dissertation examines the intergenerational transmission of educational attainment in divorced and remarried families. So far, the association between the educational attainment of parents and children has mostly been studied in the context of the biological two-parent family. In biological two-parent families all children are biologically related to their parents and grow up in the same household as their parents. In contrast, in divorced families and stepfamilies, in which children are biologically related to some parent figures but not to all (i.e., stepparents) and in which children do not automatically share a home with both of their biological parents, coresidence and biological bonds are disentangled. This provides new opportunities to test assumptions about the way in which intergenerational similarities in educational attainment are produced. There are two main focus points: exposure and family networks. First, I emphasize the need to estimate the number of years children are exposed to the resources of different parent figures. More exposure to resources, based on coresidence and parental involvement, is supposedly beneficial for the intergenerational transmission of educational attainment. Second, including a complete picture of the network of a (step)family is important. By mapping all relevant family members, all actors who can provide resources and who can dilute resources are considered. Additionally, the interdependencies between family members are studied.