OBJECTIVE
Ample research demonstrates that experiencing parental death or divorce harms children’s educational attainment. Less is known about variation herein, both between parental death and divorce and across social contexts. We investigated how family and national cont¬exts moderate the educational consequences of these adverse events. At the family level, we studied whether the educational consequences of parental death and divorce are larger for children of higher-educated parents. At the national level, we investigated the buffering role of welfare benefits as well as the amplifying impact of a selective educational system and the divorce rate. Moreover, we examined the interplay between family and country contexts.

RESULTS
Using multilevel regression models with data from 17 countries from the Generations and Gender Survey, we found that parental divorce had a larger impact than parental death. Furthermore, the impact of parental divorce was largest for children of higher-educated parents. Less selective educational systems and provision of single-parent benefits reduced the educational consequences of parental death, specifically for children of lower-educated parents.

CONCLUSIONS
Our results indicate that although both parental death and divorce harm children’s educational attainment, their impacts differ across family and country contexts. The consequences of divorce strongly depend on the resources available in a family, while the effects of parental death are mitigated by educational and welfare policies.



中文翻译：

---

父母死亡和离婚的教育后果的变化：家庭和国家特征的作用（Carlijn Bussemakers、Gerbert Kraaykamp、Jochem Tolsma）

目标
大量研究表明，经历父母死亡或离婚会损害孩子的教育成就。对这里的变化知之甚少，无论是在父母死亡和离婚之间，还是跨社会背景。我们调查了家庭和国家背景如何缓和这些不良事件的教育后果。在家庭层面，我们研究了父母死亡和离婚对受过高等教育的孩子的教育影响是否更大。在国家层面，我们调查了福利福利的缓冲作用以及选择性教育制度和离婚率的放大影响。此外，我们研究了家庭和国家背景之间的相互作用。

结果
使用多层次回归模型和来自世代和性别调查的 17 个国家的数据，我们发现父母离婚比父母死亡的影响更大。此外，父母离婚对父母受过高等教育的孩子的影响最大。较少选择性的教育系统和单亲福利的提供减少了父母死亡的教育后果，特别是对于受教育程度较低的父母的孩子。

结论
我们的研究结果表明，虽然父母去世和离婚都会损害儿童的教育成就，但它们的影响因家庭和国家背景而异。离婚的后果在很大程度上取决于家庭可用的资源，而教育和福利政策可以减轻父母死亡的影响。