Parents’ social activities and children's school attainments. First results

Abstract

Using longitudinal data from the German Socio‐Economic Panel, we investigate whether parental social activities such as attending cultural events, doing volunteer work, and socializing with friends promote the educational attainments of children.

We find highly significant linkages between parents’ activities and the attainments of children. Generally, the more intense the social activities of the parents, the better the educational attiainments of the children. Differentiating between various social activities, we found positive effects for both parents’ attending cultural events and engaging in active sports. In addition to that, we found positive effects for mother's political activities. But beyond those expected positive returns on investment in social capital, we also observed negative effects for father's socializing with friends.

Notes

Funding for this research was provided to Büchel by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and to Duncan by the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development as part of its Child and Family Well‐being Research Network.