IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/reihed/v58y2017i7d10.1007_s11162-016-9445-8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Family Structure Changes During High School and College Selectivity

Author

Listed:
  • Brian P. An

    (University of Iowa)

  • Kia N. Sorensen

    (Oregon Department of Education)

Abstract

Research has shown that family structure changes negatively influence educational attainment, but they overlook qualitative distinctions in college choice, such as college selectivity. Yet, college choice research has largely focused on static measures of family structure, failing to account for year-to-year family structure changes that occur during high school. We merge literature in family and college choice to investigate the role of family-life events on college choice. We found family structure changes that occur early and late in high school influence the selectivity of the college where a student applies, and this relation persists in spite of controls for race, gender, family background, and pre-high school family structures. Including educational expectations, parent–student discussions, and coursework rigor account for the negative association between family structure changes during high school and the selectivity of the college where a student applies. However, late family structure changes during high school continue to correlate negatively with a student’s college enrollment, potentially reflecting realities and financial burdens of attending college, especially selective colleges.

Suggested Citation

  • Brian P. An & Kia N. Sorensen, 2017. "Family Structure Changes During High School and College Selectivity," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 58(7), pages 695-722, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:reihed:v:58:y:2017:i:7:d:10.1007_s11162-016-9445-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s11162-016-9445-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11162-016-9445-8
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11162-016-9445-8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael B. Paulsen & Edward P. St. John, 2002. "Social Class and College Costs," The Journal of Higher Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 73(2), pages 189-236, March.
    2. Sara Mclanahan, 2004. "Diverging destinies: How children are faring under the second demographic transition," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 41(4), pages 607-627, November.
    3. Scott Myers & Carrie Myers, 2015. "Family Structure and School-Based Parental Involvement: A Family Resource Perspective," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 36(1), pages 114-131, March.
    4. Stacy Berg Dale & Alan B. Krueger, 2002. "Estimating the Payoff to Attending a More Selective College: An Application of Selection on Observables and Unobservables," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1491-1527.
    5. Gunnar Andersson, 2002. "Children's experience of family disruption and family formation: Evidence from 16 FFS countries," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 7(7), pages 343-364.
    6. Richard Williams, 2006. "Generalized ordered logit/partial proportional odds models for ordinal dependent variables," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 6(1), pages 58-82, March.
    7. Wendy Sigle-Rushton & John Hobcraft & Kathleen Kiernan, 2005. "Parental divorce and subsequent disadvantage: A cross-cohort comparison," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 42(3), pages 427-446, August.
    8. Cynthia Osborne & Sara McLanahan, 2007. "Partnership Instability and Child Well-being," Working Papers 946, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing..
    9. Paula Fomby, 2013. "Family Instability and College Enrollment and Completion," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 32(4), pages 469-494, August.
    10. Richard Williams, 2010. "Fitting heterogeneous choice models with oglm," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 10(4), pages 540-567, December.
    11. Richard Williams, 2009. "Using Heterogeneous Choice Models to Compare Logit and Probit Coefficients Across Groups," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 37(4), pages 531-559, May.
    12. Ver Ploeg, Michele, 2002. "Children from disrupted families as adults: family structure, college attendance and college completion," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 171-184, April.
    13. repec:pri:crcwel:wp04-16-ff-osborne is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Dean Lillard & Jennifer Gerner, 1999. "Getting to the Ivy League," The Journal of Higher Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 70(6), pages 706-730, November.
    15. Eric P. Bettinger & Bridget Terry Long & Philip Oreopoulos & Lisa Sanbonmatsu, 2012. "The Role of Application Assistance and Information in College Decisions: Results from the H&R Block Fafsa Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(3), pages 1205-1242.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jarvis, Jonathan A. & Read, Amy R. & Dufur, Mikaela J. & Pribesh, Shana, 2022. "Impacts of family structure on shadow education and educational achievement among South Korean youth," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wixe, Sofia & Nilsson, Pia & Naldi, Lucia & Westlund, Hans, 2017. "Disentangling Innovation in Small Food Firms: The role of External Knowledge, Support, and Collaboration," Working Paper Series in Economics and Institutions of Innovation 446, Royal Institute of Technology, CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies.
    2. Christine Schnor, 2014. "The Effect of Union Status at First Childbirth on Union Stability: Evidence from Eastern and Western Germany," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 30(2), pages 129-160, May.
    3. Sharon H. Bzostek & Lawrence M. Berger, 2017. "Family Structure Experiences and Child Socioemotional Development During the First Nine Years of Life: Examining Heterogeneity by Family Structure at Birth," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(2), pages 513-540, April.
    4. Wanger, Susanne, 2017. "What makes employees satisfied with their working time? : The role of working hours, time-sovereignty and working conditions for working time and job satisfaction," IAB-Discussion Paper 201720, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    5. Panico, Lidia & Bartley, Melanie & Kelly, Yvonne J & McMunn, Anne & Sacker, Amanda, 2019. "Family structure trajectories and early child health in the UK: Pathways to health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 232(C), pages 220-229.
    6. Du, Zhili & Lin, Boqiang, 2017. "How oil price changes affect car use and purchase decisions? Survey evidence from Chinese cities," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 68-74.
    7. Tutz, G. & Berger, M., 2017. "Separating location and dispersion in ordinal regression models," Econometrics and Statistics, Elsevier, vol. 2(C), pages 131-148.
    8. Laura Tach, 2015. "Social Mobility in an Era of Family Instability and Complexity," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 657(1), pages 83-96, January.
    9. Amanda Pallais, 2015. "Small Differences That Matter: Mistakes in Applying to College," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(2), pages 493-520.
    10. Charlie Tchinda & Marcus Dejardin, 2021. "Are Business Policy Measures in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic to Be Equally Valued? An Exploration According to SMEs Owners’ Business Expectations," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-42, October.
    11. Marcantonio Caltabiano & Silvia Meggiolaro & Valentina Tocchioni, 2023. "The impact of parental separation on the pattern of transition to adulthood in Italy," Econometrics Working Papers Archive 2023_07, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni "G. Parenti".
    12. Andrews, Rodney J. & Imberman, Scott A. & Lovenheim, Michael F., 2020. "Recruiting and supporting low-income, high-achieving students at flagship universities," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    13. Marcia J. Carlson & Sara S. McLanahan, 2009. "Fathers in Fragile Families," Working Papers 1189, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing..
    14. Ryon, Stephanie Bontrager & Chiricos, Ted & Siennick, Sonja E. & Barrick, Kelle & Bales, William, 2017. "Sentencing in light of collateral consequences: Does age matter?," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 1-11.
    15. Laurie F. DeRose & Andrés Salazar-Arango & Paúl Corcuera García & Montserrat Gas-Aixendri & Reynaldo Rivera, 2017. "Maternal union instability and childhood mortality risk in the Global South, 2010–14," Population Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 71(2), pages 211-228, May.
    16. Taylor K. Odle & Jennifer A. Delaney, 2022. "You are Admitted! Early Evidence on Enrollment from Idaho’s Direct Admissions System," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 63(6), pages 899-932, September.
    17. Zara Daghbashyan & Björn Hårsman, 2014. "University choice and entrepreneurship," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 42(4), pages 729-746, April.
    18. Rodrigo Ceni & Maira Colacce & Gonzalo Salas, 2023. "Initial inequality, unequal development: Effects of family movements on child development," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 23-07, Instituto de Economía - IECON.
    19. Lisa J. Dettling & Sarena Goodman & Jonathan Smith, 2018. "Every Little Bit Counts: The Impact of High-Speed Internet on the Transition to College," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(2), pages 260-273, May.
    20. Xindong Xue & W. Robert Reed, 2015. "The Relationship Between Social Capital And Health In China," Working Papers in Economics 15/05, University of Canterbury, Department of Economics and Finance.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:reihed:v:58:y:2017:i:7:d:10.1007_s11162-016-9445-8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.