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Diverging Mobility Trajectories: Grandparent Effects on Educational Attainment in One- and Two-Parent Families in the United States

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  • Xi Song

    (University of Chicago)

Abstract

In recent years, sociological research investigating grandparent effects in three-generation social mobility has proliferated, mostly focusing on the question of whether grandparents have a direct effect on their grandchildren’s social attainment. This study hypothesizes that prior research has overlooked family structure as an important factor that moderates grandparents’ direct effects. Capitalizing on a counterfactual causal framework and multigenerational data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, this study examines the direct effect of grandparents’ years of education on grandchildren’s years of educational attainment and heterogeneity in the effects associated with family structure. The results show that for both African Americans and whites, grandparent effects are the strongest for grandchildren who grew up in two-parent families, followed by those in single-parent families with divorced parents. The weakest effects were marked in single-parent families with unmarried parents. These findings suggest that the increasing diversity of family forms has led to diverging social mobility trajectories for families across generations.

Suggested Citation

  • Xi Song, 2016. "Diverging Mobility Trajectories: Grandparent Effects on Educational Attainment in One- and Two-Parent Families in the United States," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 53(6), pages 1905-1932, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:demogr:v:53:y:2016:i:6:d:10.1007_s13524-016-0515-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s13524-016-0515-5
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    3. Rachel Margolis & Ashton M. Verdery, 2019. "A Cohort Perspective on the Demography of Grandparenthood: Past, Present, and Future Changes in Race and Sex Disparities in the United States," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(4), pages 1495-1518, August.
    4. Timothy M. Smeeding, 2018. "The PSID in Research and Policy," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 680(1), pages 29-47, November.
    5. Wang, Sophie Xuefei & Bansak, Cynthia, 2022. "Are Grandparents a Good Substitute for Parents as the Primary Caregiver? The Impact of Grandparents on Children's Academic Performance," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1100, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    6. Judith A. Seltzer, 2019. "Family Change and Changing Family Demography," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(2), pages 405-426, April.
    7. Xi Song & Robert D. Mare, 2017. "Short-Term and Long-Term Educational Mobility of Families: A Two-Sex Approach," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(1), pages 145-173, February.
    8. Bhashkar Mazumder, 2018. "Intergenerational Mobility in the United States: What We Have Learned from the PSID," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 680(1), pages 213-234, November.
    9. Hal Caswell, 2019. "The formal demography of kinship: A matrix formulation," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 41(24), pages 679-712.

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