The contexts of parental job loss and children's educational attainment

Abstract

Prior research on the effects of parental job loss on children has paid little attention to the life course and contextual features of parental job loss. In my dissertation, I examine three such contexts: timing of job loss in the child's life, family socioeconomic status, the number of parental job losses and the duration of parental unemployment spells. The dissertation contains three related papers; I focus on a cohort of children in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, to examine the relationship between these contexts of parental job loss and educational attainment at age 25. In the first paper, I draw from interdisciplinary research on parental job loss, sibling differences and life course theories. I consider whether the timing of a parent's job loss moderates the impact of the event on children's educational attainment in adulthood. The results suggest that, contrary to theory, timing is not a significant moderator. In the second paper, I examine the educational attainment of children born into socioeconomically similar families, but whom have divergent experiences related to parental job loss. I find that family SES primarily moderates the probability of experiencing a parental job loss. Finally, I focus on the impact of the number of parental job losses, the duration of parental unemployment spells and the interaction between number of job losses and the length of unemployment spells. I find that any parental job loss harms educational attainment, with a non-linear relationship between exposure to parental job loss and educational attainment at age 15. This dissertation on the timing of parental job loss, family socioeconomic background and exposure to job loss/unemployment helps create a fuller picture of the potential consequences of parental job loss on children's educational attainment.