Bernardi Fabrizio, Boertien Diederik
Department of Political and Social Sciences, European University Institute, Via dei Roccettini 9, I-50014, San Domenico, Italy.
Department of Political and Social Sciences, European University Institute, Via dei Roccettini 9, I-50014, San Domenico, Italy.
Soc Sci Res. 2017 Mar;63:181-191. doi: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2016.09.004. Epub 2016 Sep 15.
We examine whether the presence of non-intact families in society is related to increased inequality in educational attainment according to social background, as suggested by the 'diverging destinies' thesis. We analyze four countries, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States, that differ in the prevalence of non-intact families and in the strength of the negative association between growing up in a non-intact family and children's educational attainment. We use a Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition approach to calculate a 'counterfactual' estimate of differences in educational attainment between socioeconomically advantaged and disadvantaged children in the hypothetical absence of non-intact families. Contrary to the diverging destinies thesis, we find little differences between actual and 'counterfactual' levels of inequality in educational attainment in all four countries. Whereas growing-up in a non-intact family affects the individual chances of educational attainment, the overall contribution of non-intact families to aggregate levels of social background inequality appears minimal.
正如“命运分化”理论所表明的，我们考察社会中不完整家庭的存在是否与基于社会背景的教育成就不平等加剧有关。我们分析了四个国家，德国、意大利、英国和美国，这些国家在不完整家庭的普遍程度以及在不完整家庭中成长与儿童教育成就之间负面关联的强度方面存在差异。我们使用布林德-奥克分解方法来计算在假设不存在不完整家庭的情况下，社会经济优势和劣势儿童在教育成就上差异的“反事实”估计值。与“命运分化”理论相反，我们发现在所有四个国家中，教育成就不平等的实际水平与“反事实”水平之间几乎没有差异。虽然在不完整家庭中成长会影响个人的教育成就机会，但不完整家庭对社会背景不平等总体水平的总体贡献似乎很小。
