Family environment and multi-generational educational transmission in China: A perspective on paternal and maternal lineage differences

Research on educational transmission often focuses on intergenerational dynamics between adjacent two generations. This study explores the mechanisms of multi-generational educational transmission in Chinese families, focusing on the differences between paternal and maternal lineages and the factors influencing them. Using data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), the findings show that: (1) After controlling for parental education, grandparents' educational attainment directly impacts grandchildren's educational outcomes, challenging the conventional Markov assumption that multi-generational transmission is fully mediated by parents. The effect is stronger in the paternal lineage than in the maternal lineage. (2) Direct multi-generational interactions, such as lifecycle overlap and co-residence, positively enhance the grandparent effect. Paternal grandparents influence grandchildren primarily through lifecycle overlap, while maternal grandparents rely more on co-residence. (3) Family structure characteristics show lineage-specific effects: the number of siblings in the maternal lineage significantly weakens the grandparent effect, while same-gender sibling composition in the paternal lineage strengthens educational transmission. Additionally, in paternal lineages, grandparents with higher education levels invest in non-blood descendants, creating a compensatory mechanism that helps mitigate kinship-based disadvantages.