Gendered diverging destinies: Changing family structures and inequality of opportunity among boys and girls in the United States

The prevalence of non-standard family structures has increased over time and in particular among socioeconomically disadvantaged families. Because children’s attainments are negatively associated with growing up in non-standard family structures, changes in family structures are often considered to have strengthened the reproduction of social inequalities across generations. We argue that the validity of this argument depends on variation in how family structure affects children’s attainments, a premise we label heterogeneity in attainment penalties. Previous research has documented heterogeneity in attainment penalties across social groups and by gender. Therefore, the role of family structure in reproducing inequalities is unclear and might vary by gender too. We use data from the NLSY 1979 and 1997 cohorts to estimate the contribution of changes in family structures to parental education differences in educational attainment for boys and girls. We estimate extended Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition models which take into account both cross-cohort changes in the prevalence of family structures and heterogeneity in related penalties. Changes in the prevalence and penalties related to childhood family structures account for a 15% increase in the parental education gap in educational attainment for girls but reduced the attainment gap for boys by 13%.