Parental Divorce, Social Capital, and Postbaccalaurate Educational Attainment Among Young Adults

Abstract

Educational attainment is lower among children with divorced parents than those with continuously married parents. Most research has focused on the educational outcomes of children and little research has examined the effect of parental divorce on educational attainment beyond a bachelor’s degree. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, we investigated how parental divorce affects young adult postbaccalaureate educational attainment, measured by graduate/professional school enrollment and attainment of a graduate/professional degree. We also examined the role of social capital, measured by parental educational expectations. Parental divorce was negatively associated with enrolling in a graduate/professional program and obtaining a degree. Parental educational expectations were positively related to children’s postbaccalaureate educational attainment, but the expectations of divorced and continuously married parents were similar and did not explain the negative effect of parental divorce. More work is needed to investigate explanations for lower postbaccalaureate educational attainment among children of divorce.