Leaving the Partner, Leaving the Child? Do Parents Really Invest Less in Children after They Separate?

Michael Grätz, European University Institute

Parental separation is a disadvantageous life event with many consequences for the children who experience it. This paper investigates the influence of parental separation on parental involvement in their children's daily lives. I use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) and employ family-fixed effects models in order to control for selection into parental separation. I find substantial negative effects of parental separation on father involvement. Father involvement, however, is only reduced following separation in families with a low level of parental education. These results indicate that changes in father involvement following separation may account for the negative effects of parental separation on children's educational outcomes and the concentration of these in families with a low level of parental education.