Family structure, educational attainment, and socioeconomic success: Rethinking the "pathology of matriarchy"

The effect of alternative family structures on children's educational and o ccupational success has been constant over the past 30 years. Higher rates of unemployment and lower-status occupational positions could account for t he negative effect of single-mother families on children's attainment throu ghout the period. Children from single-father families and stepfamilies hav e consistently had lower attainments than children from both two-biological -parent and single-mother families. The influence of many other dimensions of children's family background declined from the 1960s to the 1980s but ha s declined no further since. Among six candidate theoretical frameworks, th e findings are most consistent with an evolutionary view of parental invest ment.