Family Structure and the Gender Gap in Education

Laurie DeRose, The Catholic University of America
Justin Lamoureax, The Catholic University of America

Research from within the United States and across OECD countries has found that in schools with high proportions from lone parent or unstable families, students have lower average achievement than where family stability is more normative. In the Global South, we expect this negative contextual effect to compromise boys’ education more than girls’: If many friends and neighbors support children alone, families may be more motivated to invest in girls’ future earning potential than where it is normative (and relatively safe) to expect men’s earnings to contribute throughout childrearing. The reverse gender gap in education that characterizes many advanced economies may be slower to emerge in countries with stronger marriage cultures, and emerge earlier than expected in countries with high rates of lone motherhood. The proposed research will investigate how children’s living arrangements affect educational progress in the 71+ low- and lower-middle income countries having more than one Demographic and Health Survey or Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey between 1990 and 2023. We use multilevel modelling to determine whether the gender gap in secondary education is more likely to be closed—or even reversed—where single motherhood is more common.

Keywords: Human Capital, Education, and Work, Multi-level modeling , Neighbourhood/contextual effect analysis, Families, Unions and Households

See extended abstract.