Parental Divorce, Family Structure, and Children’s Academic Performance in China

This empirical study zeroes in on the effect of family structure on Chinese adolescents’ outcomes in the divorce context, an understudied area of research. Data from the second wave of the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS) undergoes multiple regression analysis and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) to estimate the association between divorced single-parent family structure and children’s academic performance and examine its explanatory mechanisms. Results initially reveal a negative relationship between single-father families and children’s academic scores. Single-mother families also face disadvantages after controlling child characteristics. Furthermore, the impact of family structure is moderated by grandparental co-residence, demonstrating that children from single-father families benefit more from living with grandparents. Results also suggest the chain mediation of grandparental co-residence and children’s peer quality on the association between single-father families and child academic scores. The study highlights the complex role of grandparental co-residence and its influential effects in the interconnection between family and peer groups, advancing the theory of embedding mediation mechanisms into Bronfenbrenner’s framework and emphasizing the interactions unfold in the microsystem. Overall, this study encourages parents to take active roles in leveraging grandparental co-residence to enhance peer environments in their children’s development, especially in the case of divorced single-father families. It also points out potential variations in single parenthood by the gender of custodial parent for future study.