Educational Achievement and Family Structure: Evidence from Two Cohorts of Adolescents in Taiwan

Ping-Yin Kuan, Ph. D.

Associate Professor Department of Sociology

National Chengchi University Taipei, Taiwan, R. O. C.

E-mail: soci1005@nccu.edu.tw

Meng-Li Yang, Ph. D. Post-doctoral Research Fellow

Survey Research Center Academia Sinica, Taiwan, R. O. C.

E-mail: mengliya@gate.sinica.edu.tw This research was supported by Academia Sinica through the Learning 2000 Project and by a research grant provided by the National Science Council, Republic of China (NSC92-2412-H-004-008) to the first author. Direct correspondence to Ping-Yin Kuan, Department of Sociology, National Chengchi University, Wen-Shan, Taipei, 116, TAIWAN (email: soci1005@nccu.edu.tw). This paper is prepared for the Spring Meeting on Social Stratification, Mobility, and Exclusion, the Research Committee on Social Stratification and Mobility (RC28), International Sociological Association, May 7-9, Neuchatel, Switzerland. The paper is still under revision. Please do not cite without authors’ permission.

Abstract

In addition to Coleman’s theory of social capital in explaining family background on children’s educational achievement, researchers also hypothesized the mediating mechanisms being (1) deprivation of economic resources, (2) lesser parental involvement and monitoring in children’s education, and (3) fewer network ties to obtain information and other supports related to learning. Indeed, strong evidence has emerged in research findings that both stepparent families and single-parent families have adverse effects on children’s educational achievement, which may be accounted for by the lack of social capital for children in stepparent families and inadequacy of the resources in single-parent family. On the other hand, there was some evidence found in the U. S. that children of single-parent families with grandparent(s) cohabitating performed quite similarly to those of intact families. Thus, an additional close adult relative at home seemed to compensate for the loss of one parent that single-parent families suffer, with the grandparent bringing into the family additional social capital and resources. However, does this mean that the cohabitating grandparent in the single-parent family provides the same advantage as a parent? If so, does the cohabitation of grandparent(s) in an intact family bring an additional advantage to the children, too? How much larger? In this paper, we want to answer the research questions by comparing impacts on the educational achievement of children from nuclear intact families, multigenerational intact families, multigenerational single-parent families, single-parent families, and the ‘all other types of non-intact’ families. We are going to use Taiwan’s nationally representative student data for the research. Moreover, in light of the possibilities that the impacts of family characteristics on young children (before entering the 7th grade) and adolescents (since the 7th grade) may well be different, we compare two cohorts of students at 7th and 11th grade surveyed by TEPS in 2001, respectively, to examine if the impacts of family structure and functioning change. As expected, in comparison with nuclear intact family, four other types of family structure have significant effects on 7th graders’ educational achievement in our final regression analysis. The result shows that living with grandparent(s) provides an additional advantage. Living with a grandparent can either increase slightly the positive effect of living in an intact family or reduce considerably (a little one half of) the negative effect of living with a single parent. Overall, the findings of the analysis of 11th graders’ educational achievement show

that the impact of family structure has weakened. For the 11th cohort, the result of the final regression model indicated that co-residing grandparent(s) in an intact family still bring a small but significant positive contribution to grandchildren’s educational achievement. Co-residing grandparents also assist grandchildren living in single-parent families to perform as well as those living in nuclear intact families. The inclusion of various kinds of resources in the final regression model also made the negative effect of single-parent on children’s performance disappear. Those living in all other types of non-intact families, however, still suffer the negative effect of the absence of at least one biological parent in the family. In sum, our research reveals that the existence of grandparent(s) has qualitatively different effects on the offspring’s educational achievement depending on whether the family is intact or not. The findings also suggest that negative effects of non-intact families can be attributed to socialization practices and various kinds of resources do have differential effects on children of different developmental stages. Keywords: Family structure, academic achievement, adolescent, Taiwan Education

Panel Survey (TEPS)

Educational Achievement and Family Structure: Evidence from Two Cohorts of Adolescents in Taiwan

Ping-Yin Kuan & Meng-Li Yang

Introduction The rapid change of family structure in industrialized societies has been a major concern of several subfields in sociology. One topic that draws considerable attention is the relationship between educational achievement and types of family structure. James S. Coleman in his 1988 seminal paper, “Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital,” used the presence of the number of biological parents in the family as an indicator of social capital, defined as relational ties within and outside the family that might generate norms and resources contributing to adolescents’ learning achievement and behaviors. Only when parents are an important part of children’s lives—that is, parents are the social capital of children—can the parents’ own human, physical and social capital benefit the children. He found that adolescents living together with both parents had a lower dropout rate than those living in single-parent families. Coleman contended that without parent-like adults in the family, adolescents lose the human capital these adults could provide (Coleman 1988), which implies that an additional adult in the family who has strong and close relations with the children constitute an advantage for children’s learning. The concept of social capital within the family can well explain the findings that children in stepparent families usually had elevated risks of maladjustment and school failure (Zill 1996; Cherlin and Furstenberg 1994; Zill 1988). Because children’s bonding with the stepparent usually is not as strong as that with the biological parent, the social capital that the children obtain from the stepparent is thus much lower than what would usually be obtained from the biological parent. The lower social capital in turn reduces the quantity and quality of various types of resource that children could have obtained from the stepparent if the social capital were higher. For example, Stepparents were found to invest less time, energy, money, involvement in school events, and other resources in the children (Nord and West 2001; Cooksey and Fondell 1996; Popenoe 1994; Daly and Wilson 1980), and stepfathers were less likely than biological fathers to provide support, exert control or discipline the children (Amato 1987). In the last few decades, strong evidence has emerged in research findings that single-parent and stepparent families have adverse effects on children’s educational

achievement (Biblarz and Raftery 1999; Haveman and Wolfe 1995; McLanahan and Sandefur 1994). However, there was some evidence in the U. S. that children of single-parent families with grandparent(s) cohabitating performed quite similarly to those of intact families (Aquilino 1996; Deleire and Kalil 2002; Entwisle and Alexander 1996). Thus, an additional biologically related adult relative like a grandparent at home seemed to compensate for the loss of one parent that single-parent families suffer by bringing into the family additional social capital and resources. However, does this mean that the cohabitating grandparent in the single-parent family provides the same advantage as a parent? If so, does the cohabitation of grandparent(s) in an intact family bring an additional advantage to the children as well? If the additional advantage of the presence of grandparent(s) in an intact family is similar in strength to what grandparent(s) can do to a single-parent family and if the presence of grandparent(s) in a single-parent family raises the children’s achievement to the same level of those of an intact family, then it is likely that it is the number of adult relatives, rather than the special structure of an intact family, that matters. Otherwise, it would imply that the special character of an intact family would be the main reason for the advantage. Hence, the question helps us distinguish the relative importance of family as a structure versus the number of bonds (social capital) with close adult relatives. Why does family structure matter to children’s educational achievement? Researchers have proposed at least three important mechanisms mediating the effects of family structure on children’s academic achievement: the economic resources, the socialization resources (parenting and involvement), and the network resources. It is likely that the cohabitating grandparents bring such resources to the children. This makes possible the observed equalizing effect of the grandparent cohabitating for outcomes of children in single-parent families. Assuming that the resources brought by co-residing grandparents are the same for either intact or non-intact families, the effects of grandparents should also be the same, when such resources are controlled. However, such reasoning requires empirical testing. The above questions, nevertheless, are not easy to be answered with data of Western industrialized societies because few grandparent(s) in the western world live in their adult children’s intact families. The questions can, however, be addressed with data of a society like Taiwan. Although family structures in Taiwan have also been going through great transformation during the last few decades, thanks to the cultural

tradition, a great majority of the households with unmarried children are still nuclear intact families, which compose about 42% in year 2000. Furthermore, the traditionally idealized multigenerational intact families, defined as those with both biological parents, unmarried children, and at least one grandparent, compose around 11% of the households (Directorate-General of Budget 2002). One major change of the family structure in Taiwan is the rising proportion of what used to be rare--the single-parent family, now making up around 6% of the households (Directorate-General of Budget 2002). Such a rich variety of household types allows us to investigate the relative importance of family structural effect versus the number of adult relatives to children’s outcome. In the following, we will first review international and Taiwan’s literature concerning the relationships between family structure and three mechanisms and their consequences on educational achievement. Then we formulate research hypotheses and introduce the datasets and methods of analyses to test our hypotheses. In the end, we will discuss results and draw conclusions regarding our research questions. Literature Review Researchers in the US have consistently found adverse effects of single-parent families on the child’s educational achievement. For example, in reviewing research results from large longitudinal data, (Zill 1996) found that students from nuclear intact families had the best academic performance, while students from alternative family types such as stepparent families and single-parent families performed not so well. Moreover, although the effects of family types weakened a little after background variables such as parental education and ethnicity were added into the model, family type effects did not vanish. On the other hand, although students from stepparent families appeared to perform better than those from single-parent families, once other background characteristics were taken into consideration, however, performance of students from stepparent families became indistinguishable from that of single-parent families. Han and Huang (2000) also found that in Taiwan, children in single-parent families had a lower rate of attending college than those from intact families. Why are students from single-parent families at such a disadvantage? Through what mediating mechanisms does family structure affect the adolescents’ educational achievement? In general, researchers attributed the disadvantage to three types of resource: (1) economic resources: single-parent families are often trapped in poverty or have greater economic burden; (2) socialization resources: single-parent families

are less able to provide a good environment for children in terms of educational involvement and educational aspiration; (3) network resources: single-parent families have fewer network ties for obtaining information and other types of support related to children’s learning. In the following, we will examine each of these three mediating factors in greater details and pay special attention to the possible benefits that co-residing grandparents may bring, which enhance the advantage of nuclear intact families or compensate for the deficiency experienced by single parents. It should be noted that the latter two kinds of resources are closely related to Coleman’s concept of social capital. Economic Resources Many researchers have found that a crucial reason for the disadvantage of single-parent family students was the poor economic condition that usually accompanies this type of families (Entwisle and Alexander 1995; Entwisle and Alexander 1996; McLanahan and Sandefur 1994). Particularly, McLanahan and Sandefur (1994) found that economic conditions explained 50 % of the variation of achievement scores. McLanahan and Bumpass (1988) also found that the effect of intact versus single-parent families on high school graduation rates dropped 30 to 50% once family income was added into the model. They offered as the explanation that, owing to lack of economic resources, children from single-parent families had fewer accesses to books and to cultural activities that would have helped develop their cognitive ability and intelligence, which resulted in the higher dropout rate than peers from intact families. In Taiwan, Huang (Huang 2000) found that single-parent families had fewer economic resources and that such families spent less on children’s education and single-father families spent even less on education (Huang, Wen-Jui, and Garfinkel 2000). In order to increase economic resources, single parents could remarry and reconstitute their families(Ganong and Coleman 1989). Stepparent families seemed to enjoy the same level of economic resources as those in the intact families (Downey 1995). The transition, however, may not necessarily increase the money invested in the children (Popenoe 1994; Daly and Wilson 1980). In so far as economic resources are concerned, the addition of grandparent(s) in an intact family might or might not be an asset to the family and therefore to the child. It is conceivable that if the grandparent needs long-term care, the family would expend extra to cover the costs and cut back on other things, which might include expenditures for the child’s education (Hu 1985). On the other hand, wealthier

grandparent(s) might provide housing or bring in extra income for the family. Several studies have found that, even though the rate of cohabitating with older parents is declining, adult children still feels obligated to support their parents financially (Chattopadhyay and Marsh 1999; Lee, Parish, and Willis 1994; Lin, Goldman, Weinstein, Lin, Gorrindo, and Seeman 2003). The study of Lee, Parish and Willis (1994) on intergenerational support in Taiwan further indicated that older parents tended to live with poorer sons and received financial support from other more resourceful children. If this is the case, then the cohabitation of old parents in the family might not be too much a liability. It may even be a blessing for the single parents. Older parents may ask their widowed or divorced adult children to live with them (Tang 2002) and provide financial and material support out of their own pocket or simply transfer the support given by other adult children, in addition to helping take care of the adult child and grandchildren. Socialization Resources Socialization resources refer to parents’ or other family adults’ behavioral and psychological involvement of children’s education. Many researchers have found that, regarding children’s achievement, effects of socialization on children’s educational achievement were independent of those of socioeconomic status (Astone and McLanahan 1991; Ho and Wilms 1996; Lee 1993). Parents may be involved in children’s learning in many ways, such as the home-based involvement of monitoring after school activities, monitoring school studies, and advising on studying strategies; or the school-based involvement of directly intervening in school administration by changing classes or tracks assigned for the children, selecting teachers or talking to teachers on behalf of the child. These actions are generally found to benefit children’s learning achievement (Astone and McLanahan 1991; Fehrmann, Keith, and Reimers 1987; Ho and Wilms 1996; Stevenson and Baker 1987). In fact, monitoring children’s home activities was constantly found to be positively related to their achievement (Crouter and MacDermid 1990; Muller 1993; Muller and Kerbow 1993). In general, single-parents and stepparents tended to provide less supportive parental practices for children’s schooling (Cooksey and Fondell 1996; Thomson, McLanahan and Curtin 1992; Lee 1993). In comparison with parents of intact families, they monitored their children less (Dornbusch et al., 1985; Muller and Kerbow, 1993) and tended to involve less in children’s schools (Nord and West 2001).

Persuading children into taking more academically oriented courses or intervening in

school administration by changing class or teachers are two aggressive types of involvement. (Gamoran 1987) found that the high correlation between family socioeconomic status and achievement dropped dramatically once the course taking strategies were taken into consideration. Most of the time, parents were the hands behind such strategies. (Baker and Stevenson 1986), Lareau (1987) and Stevenson and Baker (1987) traced the effect of family socioeconomic status on achievement to such parent actions. Useem (1992) also found that the higher the mother’s education is, the clearer she is about the importance of selecting classes and courses. Such mothers are also likelier to talk children into selecting more demanding courses and to actively try to understand school affairs and intervene in school decision-making processes. For such form of involvement, parents of intact families again can afford more time and efforts than single-parents and are more concerned than stepparents (Useem 1992). Researchers have also examined parental expectations for children’s educational achievement. Parents’ educational expectation for children has been repeatedly found to be positively related to the children’s achievement outcome (Astone and McLanahan 1991; Entwisle and Alexander 1996; Milne, Myers, Rosenthal, and Ginsburg 1986; Sewell and Hauser 1980). Several studies even found that parents’ stated expectations had predictive power for their children’s achievement a few years later (Entwisle, Alexander, and Olson 1997; Entwisle and Hayduk 1988). One important reason is that parents with high expectations do more than having positive and encouraging attitudes toward the children. They also provide resources (such as buying books, puzzles and games, telling stories, and going to the library) to help developing the cognitive ability, so that the children can live up to the expectations. Thus parental expectation is, to the children, another form of resource in addition to economic capital and human capital. In contrast to families with two biological parents, single parents are usually pressed by the burden of living and thus cannot afford much time and support for the children. They are also stressed out with frustrations of all kinds, have lower self-esteem and likewise have lower expectations for the children. Children in stepfamilies are also at a disadvantage because they cannot access the resource that parents hold. The parent-child relationship in stepfamilies is usually more distant than in the former two types of families. Parents usually provide less support and thus have lower expectations for the children. In short, whether the single-parent cannot afford enough or the step-child cannot access, children in these two types of families receive lower educational expectations and obtain lesser the accompanying socialization for them to adjust in school (Astone and McLanahan 1991; Entwisle and Alexander 1996).

Grandparents in addition to two biological parents in the family may or may not be a blessing for the grandchild’s socialization. On the one hand, the co-residence of grandparents in the intact family might cause tension because of conflicts between the first two generations in aspects of habits, ways of thinking, and parenting principles (Hu 1985; Kung 1999). Such tension might divert parents’ attention away from the child or produce conflicting normative expectations for the child, in which case the child might be at a loss and on the loose. An earlier study in Taiwan also found that multigenerational families often were more hierarchically structured than nuclear intact families, the former providing more external control for the grandchildren and thus less opportunity for the grandchildren to develop intrinsic motivation, which might also interfere with the grandchild’s achievement (Olson 1974). These possibilities make the grandparents in an intact family a possible liability. On the other hand, co-residing grandparents may provide more psychological support for the grandchildren as well as for the adult son (or daughter), help convey parents’ expectation and advice to the grandchild, and constantly monitor the grandchild’s activities at home. There are quite a few pieces of evidence of grandparents providing extra care for the grandchild in the U.S. literature, though most of it is in the context of single-parent families. For example, (Geronimus 1997) found that grandparent(s) nurtured children of single mothers living with their own parent(s) by providing financial support for the children and taking care of the grandchildren. Although studies found that, teenage mothers living with their parents were often the worst adjusted of the peers, least able as well as least motivated to live independently (Chase-Lansdale and Brooks-Gunn 1994), children of such mothers developed better in kindergarten in terms of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral aspects in comparison with those living with teenage mothers that did not live with their parents.(Leadbeater and Bishop 1994; Pope, Whiteside, Brooks-Gunn, Kelleher, Rickert, Bradley, and Casey 1993). Deleire and Kalil (2002) also found that children living in their single mothers and with at least one grandparent could have educational and other developmental outcomes as good as or even better than those living in nuclear intact families. Aquilino (1996) found that adolescents of single parents living together with grandparents had lower high school dropout rates than those of single parents not living together with grandparents. Several studies in Taiwan also showed that grandparents who cohabitated with their adult children helped with household chores (Lee et al. 1994) and assisted in caring for the grandchildren, especially when the mothers were in the labor force (Hu and Chou 1996).

Network Resources Network resources such as relatives outside the family (Shavit and Pierce 1991), neighborhoods (Entwisle, Alexander and Olsen, 1994), or schools (Ho and Wilms, 1996) were found to benefit the child’s educational achievement, by providing support to the adults, supplementary monitoring of the children, as well as better facilities for learning such as the library and parks. With the disappearance of the spouse, however, single-parents lose potential resources from relatives of the spouse. Moreover, pressed with the load of livelihood, single-parents are less likely to pay attention to the management of networks with friends and relatives. As a result, they are less likely to obtain resources or information from the networks of relatives or other parents. Since it has been found that the step-parents are less involved in children’s schools (Nord and West, 2001), it is reasonable to assume that stepfamilies also have less opportunities to involve in sharing and obtaining information beneficial to the children. The presence of grandparents, on the other hand, may give additional linkage to relatives and schools and, hence, contribute to grandchildren’s learning. Research Hypotheses In light of the above review, the following research hypotheses can be formulated in explaining the relationship between types of family structure and adolescents’ academic achievement. We would expect that: H1: Grandparent(s) living with either intact or single-parent families will give an

additional advantage to adolescents’ academic achievement, relative to the nuclear intact and single-parent families, respectively.

H2: The effects of types of family structure on adolescents’ academic achievement are mediated when various types of resources.

H3: The advantage of intact families, either nuclear or multigenerational, will decrease when adolescents moved from junior high to senior high.

In order to examine if the effects and relative importance of co-residing grandparents are just additive or conditional on types of family, we propose two stronger versions of H1 in the following: H1a: Children of multigenerational single-parent families will perform as well as

children in nuclear intact families. H1b: The advantage of children in multigenerational intact families over that in

nuclear intact families is equal in size to the difference between nuclear intact families and single-parent families.

We used data sets provided by the Taiwan Education Panel Survey (TEPS) conducted in 2001 to test these research hypotheses. Data and Method The data sets are samples of 7th graders and 11th graders of the TEPS. The data were collected in 2001. TEPS is a clustered multistage stratified probability sample. The sample of 7th graders consisted of 13,978 students selected from 333 junior high schools. The 11th graders sample had 13,509 students selected from 234 regular senior high schools and vocational senior high schools and 25 five-year technical colleges. Sample sizes used for the present research are 12,442 and 12,320 for the 7th and 11th graders, respectively, after deleting missing cases for variables included in the final regression analysis. For each cohort of students, TEPS administered a standardized test, which consisted of items gauging students’ reading, math and analytical abilities. We use ability scores derived from the test results using the 1-PL Item Response Model as the indicator of students’ educational achievement. This ability score is in a unit normal distribution with mean of 0 and variance of 1. Using items of the student’s questionnaire concerning the identity of members who presently resided in the student’s family, we construct five types of family structure: (1) nuclear intact family: where only both biological parents were present, (2) multigenerational intact family: where both biological parents and grandparent(s) were present, (3) multigenerational single-parent family: where a single parent and grandparent(s) were present, (4) single-parent family, and (5) all other types of non-intact family. The last type is an all-inclusive category that comprises students living with grandparent(s) only, with at least a stepparent only, or with at least a stepparent and grandparent(s). All forms of non-intact families occurred before either the 7th grade or the 10th grade for the 7th graders and 11th graders respectively. We use data from both the student’s and the parent’s’ questionnaire to construct variables related to the mediating mechanisms. From the parents’ questionnaire, we use monthly family income as a measure of economic resources. Indicators of socialization resources are obtained from both questionnaires. From the student’s questionnaire, we use parents’ discussion with students about plans of future schooling and occupation, parents’ listening to student’s inner thoughts, parents’ checking homework and test results, and parents’ attendance of school events or parent-teacher association to measure the behavioral aspect of socialization resources.

For the cohort of 11th graders, they were asked to evaluate these parental practices since they were in junior high and, for 7th grader, no specific time point is referred. From the parent’s questionnaire, we use parents’ educational expectation as the measure of the psychological aspect of socialization resources. As for network resources, we obtained from the students’ questionnaire on the frequency of visiting relatives. We also use the extent of familiarity with other parents obtained from the parents’ questionnaire as the other indicator of network resources. In the regression analyses, we control background variables of the students and their families, including the student’s sex, sibling size, ethnicity, and parents’ level of education. We employed hierarchical regression analyses to examine the gross effects of family structure, with and without control variables first. In order to understand the effects of three mediating mechanisms, we incorporate variables related to economic resources, socialization resources, and network resources progressively into the regression analysis. Results Descriptive Statistics Tables 1 and 2 give the descriptive statistics of the two cohorts for variables included in the present research.1 There are a few more girls in both cohorts, with boys making up 49% of both samples.

The distribution of the five types of families of the two cohorts is similar. Nuclear intact families took up more than 65%. Multigenerational intact and the ‘all other’ types of non-intact families were around 13% to 17%. The multigenerational single-parent and single-parent types constituted around 2.5 % and 8% respectively.2 The distribution of family income is also similar, with most families (more than 75%) having monthly income in the range of NT$20,000 and NT$100,000 (2nd and 3rd level of income categories in the questionnaire). Monthly family income under 20,000 is close to the officially defined ‘low-income household’ in Taiwan.3 Less than 10% of the families in both cohorts were in this category.

1 All estimates of mean are obtained by using ‘svymean’ command of Stata 8, which takes into account the effect of cluster sampling and personal weights. 2 For the cohort of junior high, the percentage students living in single-father headed families is 2.97% of the total sample and those living in single-mother headed families is 5.53%. As to the cohort of senior high, the percentage students living in single-father headed families is 1.68% of the total sample and those living in single-mother headed families is 5.25%. 3 According to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Interior, the average monthly household income of the officially defined low-income household was NT$22,766 in 2001 (http://www.moi.gov.tw/W3/stat/Survey/low-income90.htm. April 25, 2004).

Among the types of parental involvement and practices, talking about plans of future schooling and occupation (‘Talk about plans’) and checking homework and test results (‘Check homework’) had the highest occurrences. Moreover, parents of the younger cohort did more of checking homework than talking about future plans while those of the older cohort talked about future plans more often than checking homework. This seemed reasonable to us, since the younger cohort was freshmen in junior high schools, parents would spend more time checking on their progress since their children’s elementary school years. Students were also a little bit too young to think about future plans. On the other hand, the older cohort was beginning to consider their future—whether to plan for post-compulsory4 or even higher education and what fields to study, or to think about the early entry of the labor force. Moreover, the older cohort had gained a lot more autonomy during the high school stage. It would be quite unusual if parents checked their schoolwork intensively and parents might not even be able to help them on their homework either. Parents of the younger cohort were more likely to be involved in other two socialization practices: attendance at school events (‘Attend school events’) and talking about inner thoughts (‘Talk about inner thoughts’). These are reasonable occurrences too because of the 7th graders’ younger age and higher dependence on the parents.

The fact that families of Chinese culture tremendously value offspring’s educational achievement is evidenced in the parents’ educational expectation for the adolescents. For both cohorts, more than 50% of the parents expected their children would obtain a college degree, and about 25% an advanced degree from graduate schools. Less than 10% of the younger cohort’s parents were satisfied with a high school diploma, and less than 6% of the 11th graders’ parents were. The lower rate in the 11th cohort might reflect the fact that the most disadvantaged students had been sifted out of the educational institution in the transition from the 9th grade to the 10th grade. In Taiwan, students take entrance exams in this transition so as to be admitted to one of the three tracks at the senior high level: general senior high schools, vocational senior high schools, and five-year technical colleges. Since senior high school education is not mandatory, the most disadvantaged students might have decided to give up schooling at this point. Post Hoc Comparisons among Family Types From Tables 3 and 4, children of intact families, either nuclear or multigenerational (Types A and B), clearly received more resources of various kinds—economic, socialization, and network—than those of non-intact families (Types C, D and E).

4 The compulsory education in Taiwan ends in 9th grade, which is the third year of junior high.

Looking more carefully, with a grandparent co-residing in an intact family (Type B), parents’ behavioral involvement, i.e., attendance at school events, talking about plans, talking about inner thoughts and checking homework, tended to be higher for both cohorts than the nuclear intact families (Type A), even though most of the differences did not reach significance. On the other hand, the family income and educational expectation of multigenerational intact families tended to be lower than those of the nuclear intact ones. This difference may be explained by Lee, Parish, and Willis’s (1994) finding that grandparents in Taiwan usually live with the poorer adult child’s family and the other better off children more or less subsidize the family. The presence of a grandparent in non-intact families (Type C) did not seem to be able to make up completely for the disadvantage of the loss of a parent, as almost all the differences between nuclear intact and multigenerational single-parent families were significant. Both cohorts of adolescents in the latter type (Type C) receive lesser economic, socialization and lesser network resources than those in the nuclear intact families. As a matter of fact, the addition of grandparents in single-parent families (Type C) did not seem to have much effect at all, since such a type of families was not different from the single-parent families (Type D) in terms of resources received. Single-parent families (Type D) even visited relatives significantly more often than multigenerational single-parent families (Type C). Thus, the advantage of having a grandparent at home seemed to be minimal at most. The ‘all other types’ of non-intact families did not seem to be at a disadvantage compared to the two types of single-parent families. In fact, the economic resources of this last type tended to be higher than the two single-parent types. The slight economic advantage of the ‘all other types’ may be attributed to the inclusion of stepfamilies within the type. A relatively clearer pattern is that parents’ educational expectation in this all-inclusive type (Type E) was lower in both cohorts, but not all comparisons reached statistical significance. In sum, the bivariate relationships between types of family structure and various mediating variables, to large extent, are consistent with our expectation of the advantageous position of the intact families. We now turn to regression analysis to see if these advantages in various kinds of resources would contribute to educational achievement and the effects of family structure. Regression Models As the IRT ability score (our measure of educational achievement) of both cohorts were in unit normal distribution, the interpretation of the coefficients in Tables 5 and 6 would be in terms of standard deviation of the achievement score: a unit change in the explanatory variable would be associated with (coefficient) standard deviation in the

educational achievement, holding the other variables constant. Thus, the impacts of variables across the two cohorts are comparable. Tables 5 and 6 present regression results for the younger and older cohorts, respectively. We use the nuclear intact type as the reference group since it is the majority type of the families in Taiwan. The first model considers the gross differences among the types of family structure. Generally, the addition of grandparent(s) to an intact family boosted the adolescent’s ability score a little, though the difference did not reach significance in the older cohort. The addition of grandparent(s) to a non-intact family tended not to fully compensate for the structural imperfection of the family, though the difference between it and the nuclear intact type for the older cohort was small and insignificant (-.029 of Table 6). But it did seem to provide some amount of protection, as adolescents of the single-parent families fared even worse academically. The younger cohort of the single-parent families in our sample averaged .4 of a standard deviation (-.411) below those of nuclear intact families, while the disadvantage of adolescents of multigenerational single-parent families were nearly halved (-.244) (Table 5). Adolescents of the ‘all other types’ of non-intact families in Table 5 had the lowest educational achievement; the difference between this last type and the nuclear intact type was pretty huge, -.685 for the younger cohort and -.353 for the older cohort. Comparing across the two cohorts, we find that the difference pattern among the types was similar. However, the effects of family structure were smaller for the 11th cohort. In short, the results of the analysis at this stage support our research hypotheses H1 and H3. H1a is supported only in the older cohort and H1b is refuted. This pattern of support and refutation remains in the following analyses. The addition of control variables in Model 2 shrank the differences a little bit for the younger cohort (Table 5), but increased the differences for the older cohort (Table 6). Model 2 was not very different from Model 1 qualitatively, however, since change was quite small. A somewhat more significant change was found for the multigenerational intact families of the older cohort (Table 6): Adolescents living in this type of families now had significantly higher achievement, but not much, than those of nuclear intact families. With the economic resources (family monthly income) taken into consideration, the differences among nuclear intact and the two types of single-parent families decreased, the amount of decrease being larger for the older cohort, while the advantage of adolescents in multigenerational intact families remained constant. Thus, the

advantage of a multigenerational intact family seemed not brought about by the economic factor. However, the economic factor did play a role in the disadvantage of the two types of single-parent families. Especially, in the older cohort, the differences between the two single-parent types and the nuclear intact families were reduced by .08 and became insignificant. On the other hand, the decrease in the disadvantage of the ‘all other types’ was smaller both in proportion and size for both cohorts. It seems that economic resources was not an important mediating mechanism for this type of family. As indicators of socialization resources, parental involvement and expectation further reduced the differences among nuclear intact and the two types of single-parent families (Model 4). The reduction of differences, compared to the coefficients of types of family structure in Model 3, is between 20 to 30%, with the exception of the multigenerational single-parent type of family in the older cohort, whose beneficial effect increased again and became positive, but did not reach significance. The advantage of multigenerational intact families over nuclear intact ones decreased a little bit, too, but still retained its significance. Though the proportion of reduction was smaller than that of the two single-parent types, the size of reduction of the ‘all other types’ of non-intact families was obvious in both cohorts. The biggest reduction, however, occurred to the effects of the monthly family income on ability scores. Across the two cohorts, the reduction in effects of the monthly family income was mostly more than one third, if we compare Models 3 and 4. In fact, the effects of parental education in Model 4 were reduced by more than one third of the effects in Model 3 as well. This suggested that a large proportion of the effect on children’s educational achievement of the family SES was mediated by parental socialization practices. As for the various kinds of involvement, talking about plans was significant only for the older cohort whereas the effect of talking about inner thoughts was contrary to our expectation for both cohorts. Moreover, the effects of checking homework for both cohorts were significant, but for the older cohort its effect was opposite to our expectation again. We used educational expectation for college as the reference group for both cohorts. Educational expectation for both cohorts exhibited strong predictive power, with each higher level of expectation associated with about half of a standard deviation of the achievement. The effects were smaller for the younger cohort than for the older one. We added network resources in the last model (Model 5). Network resources indeed had positive effects on the adolescents’ achievement for both cohorts. The differences

among the five types of family structures did not change much. The effects of the economic factor and socialization factor did not change either. The effect of network ties was pretty small and relatively independent of the other factors in terms of adolescents’ educational achievement and, hence, contribute very little to the overall explanatory power as indicated by very small increases in R2. The mediating effects of various types of resources confirm our research hypothesis H2. Discussion The advantage of children from intact families has been pretty well established in literature. Previous research has also suggested that the presence of a grandparent at home brings some benefits for children in single-parent families. However, the question remains of whether one more adult co-residing completely makes up for the loss of a parent that children in single-parent families suffer. In fact, the questions are: Does an intact family, as a structure, have special beneficial effects on the children that no other adults can make up for, if the structure becomes incomplete? Does the addition of a biologically related adult such as a grandparent at home bring the same level of benefits as a parent, if still present, might possibly bring? In this paper, we try to address the above questions. We have used the first wave survey data of two adolescent cohorts in Taiwan to investigate the effect of family types on adolescents’ educational achievement and the mechanisms mediating the effects. More specifically, we compare the effects of the addition of grandparent(s) to intact and to single-parent families and observe how the effects change as the three types of resources—economic, socialization and network—are taken into consideration. The results regarding family structures are somewhat complicated. First of all, the results indicate that the addition of a biologically related adult like a grandparent is beneficial to children’s educational achievement. The positive contribution of the grandparent(s) to children’s achievement, however, is depending on the presence of one or two biological parent in the family. It seems that when both biological parents are present in the family, a grandparent can bring a positive but rather small advantage to children’s educational achievement. The positive contribution of a grandparent is much more significant when there is only one biological parent present in the family, especially for the younger cohort of students. The presence of a grandparent, however, cannot make up completely the loss due to the absence of one biological parent. Secondly, the addition of an adult in the family who is not related biologically, such as a stepparent, or who is biologically related but only indirectly, such as the case of

grandparents who have to raise grandchildren alone, cannot overcome the adverse effect of the loss of biological parents on children’s educational achievement at all. The results of our research also suggest that the effects of types of family structure are all smaller for the older cohort. We suspect that the result of the 11th cohort might be due to the sifting effect of the transition from the 9th grade to the 10th grade. In such a transition, only the more resilient adolescents and families will remain and thus the differences among the family structure types be shrunk. As to the question of what makes family structure influential in children’s educational achievement, our analyses show that adolescents in intact families indeed enjoy an advantage in educational achievement, in addition to the greater economic resource, more parental involvement, higher educational expectation, and more network resources. With grandparent(s) co-residing, adolescents in multigenerational intact families enjoy an additional small advantage in educational achievement than those living in nuclear intact families. In contrast, adolescents from the three non-intact family types suffer less resources and lower achievement. Moreover, even though the disadvantages of the three types of non-intact families were very similar, the adverse effects of the ‘all other types’ of family on educational achievement are reduced by a larger size upon the addition to the model of socialization resources than upon the economic resources. The finding suggests that the parental socialization practices of ‘all other types’ are not as good as that in the two single-parent types. Specifically, as educational expectation of the ‘all other types’ is consistently the lowest in both cohorts, it is the lower parental expectation of children’s final educational attainment, we would suggest, that constitutes the most important disadvantage in socialization. This would be consistent with previous finding that parental involvement is lower in stepfamilies relative to single-parent families (step-parent families are included in the ‘all other types’ of families in our analysis) (Lee 1993; Downey 1995). As we are using cross-sectional data sets, however, we acknowledge that such an interpretation may merit some reservation. It is surprising to find most of the mediating variables, economic resources and parental involvement, have larger effects for the older cohorts than for the younger cohorts, as it is contradictory to the general observation that parental involvement declines over time (Muller 1998; Steinberg et al. 1992), especially after elementary school (Stevenson and Baker, 1987). However, upon second thoughts, we would argue that the larger effects could be explained by the special cultural and educational system here in Taiwan.

Chinese culture has been found to value offspring’s education very much (Wu and Tseng 1985; Lee 1995), and the observation can be sustained by the higher achievement than students of other ethnicities in the U. S. (e.g., Mau 1995; Crystal 1994). People in Taiwan inherit Chinese culture and put tremendous emphasis on offspring’s educational achievement. Most parents are actively and directly involved at home with children’s school work, as can be seen from Tables 1 and 2, where talking about future school and occupational plans and checking homework had larger scores than the more indirect way of attendance at school events and psychological involvement (talking about inner thoughts). Moreover, the astonishingly high educational expectation provides another piece of strong evidence. The educational system makes the academic performance in the junior high school much more critical for students’ future educational achievement than that in the elementary school, because students had to pass a joint entrance exam for high schools. Moreover, the decision of whether entering an academic-oriented senior high school, and preferably a prestigious one that can send its students good universities, or a vocational senior high school largely determines the child’s future attainment. Thus, most parents become really concerned about the children’s school performance when the latter begin their junior high education. Furthermore, at the end of the 10th grade, most high school students have to decide which field for further study, the natural science track or the social science track, because in 2 years, they will face one more joint entrance exam for universities. Therefore, for adolescents, and their parents, in Taiwan, the educational performance since the 7th grade is extremely important for their final educational and occupational achievement. The wordings in the students’ questionnaire for parental involvement, including attendance at school events, talking about future school and occupational plans, talking about inner thoughts, and checking homework, however, asked students to recall past, not just recent, experience. Specifically, for the 11th graders, the period of time referred to was ‘since junior high school’, while for the 7th graders, no specific period of time was referred. Thus, for the 11th graders, the referenced period of time for parental involvement was exactly the time when most parents would want to exert the most power to help the child to achieve. In contrast, the referenced time for the 7th graders is most likely elementary school days, when the parents feel it all right not to push so hard. Given the above background, it is easy to understand the larger effect of economic

factors, attendance at school events and educational expectation for the 11th graders. Parents are likely to seriously start to exert their influence, including economic resources and parental involvement for children’s achievement when the children begin junior high schools. Though they are concerned about education ever since the child is in kindergarten, they begin to seriously push for better performance, based on the foundations built up in the elementary school. They may begin to talk to the child their expectation for the educational and occupational attainment; they may seek extra help for students’ studies, such as buying various workbooks, finding cram schools or tutors to enhance school studies; and they may contact the school and teachers about their concerns and wishes. Likewise, the reason for the large effect on talking about future plans of school and occupation for the 11th graders and no effect for the 7th graders can be explained. As we have said in the previous section, the 7th graders were probably too young to consider such plans, especially as the time referred to for them was most likely elementary school days. Their talk might be remotely related to the current situation and might not real serious plans. To the contrary, the time referred to for the 11th graders, ‘since junior high school,’ was very significant for the child’s future educational achievement. Thus their talks with parents were more likely to be serious plans, ones that have taken into account one’s own interest and ability. On the part of the parents, the higher the expectation was, the more often they were likely to talk to the child about such plans. The involvement of talking about inner thoughts was found to be negatively related to academic achievement. This finding while may seem to be inconsistent with those found in the U.S. (e.g., McNeal Jr. 1999). The inconsistency may be explained by what is measured by this indicator. The wording of this indicator is about ‘inner thoughts,’ not things related to schools specifically. Hence, it is possible that this indicator measured some aspects of psychological stress or identity confusion experienced by adolescents. More research, however, is needed to confirm this reasoning. The contradictory effects for checking homework in the two cohorts might also be due to the different referenced time periods. Since the time referred to for the 11th grader was adolescence, a stage with stronger and stronger sense of autonomy and independence, might not be happy to have school work monitored constantly by the parents, and most parents might not feel knowledgeable enough to help with the work (Muller, 1998; Steinberg, Brown and Dornbusch, 1996). Adolescents whose parents

monitored their work might be having difficulty in school, and parents feel compelled to do so, in spite of the adolescents’ objection, to save the adolescents from even more trouble (McNeal Jr. 1999; Sanders 1998). In contrast, the referred time period for the 7th graders was elementary school, when the respondents were still young and dependent. Their sense of autonomy was not strong either. Parents’ regularly checking their homework reflected their higher involvement in the child’s school study, which resulted in higher achievement. Obviously, our research of the impacts of family structure on children’s educational achievement is still in its early stage. At least three further questions need to be addressed more thoroughly in the future. First of all, does it matter if the grandparent is grandfather or grandmother as far as grandchildren’s educational achievement is concerned? Secondly, does the impact differ between single-mother headed family or single-father headed families? Thirdly, at what point will disruption of family structure matter for children’s educational achievement? Our discovery of the impacts of family structure is based on two cohorts. A more solid understanding of the impacts, of course, would need a longitudinal study. While the first one can best be answered in the context of Taiwan society, the latter two questions have been fairly well investigated in the West. With the progress of data collection of TEPS, we hope we can find answers to these or other interesting questions in the future.

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Table1. 7th Graders: Survey mean estimation of variables used in the analysis* (N= 12,442) Variables Mean Std. Err. Ability Score .078 .026 Types of Family Structure Nuclear intact (reference) .653 .006 Multigenerational intact .166 .005 Multigenerational with single-parent .028 .002 Single-parent .084 .004 All other types .154 .006 Economic Resources Monthly family income (in NT$10,000) 6.178 .111 Income groups (in NT$) < 20,000 .098 .006 >= 20,000 to < 50,000 (reference) .414 .009 >= 50,000 to < 100,000 .359 .008 >= 100,000 to < 150,000 .085 .005 >= 150,000 to < 200,000 .025 .002 >= 200,000 .019 .002 Socialization Resources Attend school events 1.835 .028

Talk about plans 3.184 .026 Talk about inner thoughts 2.674 .026 Check homework 3.988 .025 Level of educational expectation: High school diploma .099 .006 College degree (reference) .542 .006 Graduate degree .250 .009 No specific expectation .109 .004 Network Resources Visit relatives 1.807 .012 Know other parents .786 .013 Control Variables Male .490 .006 Sib size 1.749 .023 Ethnicity Taiwanese (reference) .702 .018 Hakka .125 .015 Mainlander .104 .006 Aborigine .020 .003 Other .008 .001 Parental education Both junior high level or below .265 .013 One senior high level and the other junior high

level or below .176 .006

Both senior high level (reference) .281 .006 One college level and the other senior

high level .105 .004

Both college level .113 .006 One graduate school level and the other

college level .060 .005

*Means were estimated with sampling weights and schools identified as primary sampling units.

Table 2. 11th Graders: Survey mean estimation of variables used in analysis* (N= 12,320) Variables Mean Std. Err. Ability Score -.196 .061 Types of Family Structure Nuclear intact (reference) .669 .006 Multigenerational intact .177 .006 Multigenerational with single-parent .024 .002 Single-parent .078 .005 All other types .130 .006 Economic Resources Monthly family income (in NT$10,000) 6.016 .112 Income groups (in NT$): < 20,000 .093 .007 >= 20,000 to < 50,000 (reference) .431 .011 >= 50,000 to < 100,000 .358 .009 >= 100,000 to < 150,000 .082 .005 >= 150,000 to < 200,000 .022 .002 >= 200,000 .014 .001 Socialization Resources Attend school events 1.489 .041 Talk about school 3.428 .031 Talk about inner thoughts 2.521 .026 Check homework 3.075 .030 Level of educational expectation: High school diploma .056 .007 College degree (reference) .605 .012 Graduate degree .251 .016 No specific expectation .089 .004 Network Resources Visit relatives 1.599 .013 Know other parents .615 .012 Control Variables Male .491 .025 Sib size 1.745 .021 Ethnicity Taiwanese (reference) .769 .014 Hakka .120 .010 Mainlander .093 .005 Aborigine .011 .003 Other .007 .001 Parental education** Both junior high level or below .314 .014 One senior high level and the other junior high

level or below .186 .005

Both senior high level (reference) .253 .007 One college level and the other senior

high level .097 .005

Both college level .101 .006 One graduate school level and the other

college level .048 .005

Table 3. Mean differences between types of family structure and mediating variables with for the 7th graders

(N = 12,442) 1

Mediating Variables (Mean Scores)

Family Types2

Monthly family income

Attend school events

Talk about school

Talk about inner

thouhts

Check home- work

Expectation of a college or

graduate degree

Visit relatives

Know other parents

A 6.659 1.943 3.333 2.765 4.135 0.821 1.865 0.842 B 6.573 2.052 3.395 2.885 4.252 0.820 1.869 0.881 C 4.555 1.222 2.592 2.162 3.129 0.748 1.405 0.718 D 4.580 1.388 2.481 2.188 3.129 0.685 1.638 0.694 E 4.960 1.461 2.563 2.129 3.251 0.632 1.481 0.733 A vs. B n. s. n. s. n. s. n. s. n. s. n. s. n. s. n. s. A vs. C *** *** *** *** *** * *** * A vs. D *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** A vs. E *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** B vs. C *** *** *** *** *** * *** *** B vs. D *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** B vs. E *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** C vs. D n. s. n. s. n. s. n. s. n. s. n. s. *** n. s. C vs. E n. s. n. s. n. s. n. s. n. s. *** n. s. n. s. D vs. E n. s. n. s. n.s. n. s. n. s. n. s. *** n. s. F (4, 12,437)

95.67*** 57.94*** 116.58*** 58.67*** 194.59*** 70.19*** 81.95*** 20.85***

1. Post Hoc comparison is conducted using Scheffe multiple-comparison test 2. Family types: A—Nuclear intact family; B—Multigenerational intact family; C—Multigenerational single-parent family;

D—Single-parent family; E—All other types of family * p <= .05; ** p <= .01; *** p <= .001; n. s.: not significant at p <=.05

Table 4. Mean differences between types of family structure and mediating variables for the 11th

graders (N = 12,320) 1

Mediating Variables (Mean Scores)

Family Types2

Monthly family income

Attend school events

Talk about school

Talk about inner

thouhts

Check home- work

Expectation of a college or

graduate degree

Visit relatives

Know other parents

A 6.589 1.628 3.613 2.612 3.203 0.882 1.659 0.660 B 6.327 1.684 3.679 2.750 3.218 0.879 1.625 0.660 C 4.685 1.069 2.692 2.145 2.257 0.873 1.293 0.551 D 4.742 1.109 2.800 2.133 2.415 0.849 1.498 0.585 E 5.772 1.081 2.901 2.228 2.530 0.815 1.294 0.488 A vs. B n. s. n. s. n. s. * n. s. n. s. n. s. n. s. A vs. C *** *** *** *** *** n. s. *** n. s. A vs. D *** *** *** *** *** n. s. *** * A vs. E *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** B vs. C *** *** *** *** *** n. s. *** n. s. B vs. D *** *** *** *** *** n. s. ** n. s. B vs. E n. s. *** *** *** *** *** *** *** C vs. D n. s. n. s. n. s. n. s. n. s. n. s. ** n. s. C vs. E * n. s. n. s. n. s. n. s. n. s. n. s. n. s. D vs. E *** n. s. n. s. n. s. n. s. n. s. *** n. s. F (4, 12,315)

53.75*** 47.63*** 109.22*** 33.52*** 90.57*** 7.10*** 46.98*** 14.76***

1. Post Hoc comparison is conducted using Scheffe multiple-comparison test 2. Family types: A—Nuclear intact family; B—Multigenerational intact family; C—Multigenerational single-parent family;

D—Single-parent family; E—All other types of family * p <= .05; ** p <= .01; *** p <= .001; n. s.: not significant at p <=.05

Table 5. Regression models for the 7th graders’ ability scores (N = 12,442) Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Independent variables B (SE B.) B (SE B.) B (SE B) Types of Family Structure Multigenerational intact .065 (.025)* .068 (.022)*** .067 (.022)** Multigenerational with

single-parent －.244 (.058)*** －.237 (.056)*** －.182 (.058)**

Single-parent －.411 (.036)*** －.340 (.033)*** －.290 (.034)*** All other types

－.685 (.042)*** －.530 (.037)*** －.510 (.037)***

Economic Resources: Monthly income (in NT$)

< 20,000 －.123 (.035)*** >= 50,000 to < 100,000 .113 (.021)***

>= 100,000 to < 150,000 .190 (.037)*** >= 150,000 to < 200,000 .193 (.052)*** >= 2000,000

.229 (.071)***

Socialization Resources Attend school events Talk about school Talk about inner thoughts Checking homework Educational expectation High school diploma Graduate school No specific expectation Network Resources Visit relatives Knowing other parents Control Variables Male －.038 (.022) －.041 (.021) Sib size －.076 (.008)*** －.075 (.008)*** Ethnicity Hakka －.129 (.036)*** －.132 (.034)*** Mainlander －.013 (.037) －.018 (.036) Aborigine －.606 (.056)*** －.570 (.056)*** Other －.357 (.085)*** －.343 (.082)*** Parental Education Both junior high level or

below －.364 (.028)*** －.316 (.029)***

One senior high level and the other junior high level or below

－.158 (.027)*** －.135 (.027)***

One college level and the other senior high level

.269 (.029)*** .242 (.028)***

Both college level .443 (.032)*** .389 (.033)*** One graduate school level and

the other college level

.693 (.041)*** .601 (.045)***

Constant .156 (.025)*** .327 (.030)*** .263 (.031)*** R2 .054 .214 .222 d. f. 4, 332 5, 332 20, 332 F 86.71*** 150.19*** 134.73*** * p <= .05 ** p <= .01 *** p<= .001

Table 5. (continued) Model 4 Model 5 Independent variables B (SE B) B (SE B.) Types of Family Structure Multigenerational intact .053 (.021)* .052 (.021)* Multigenerational with

single-parent －.137 (.053)** －.121 (.053)*

Single-parent －.216 (.032)*** －.213 (.032)*** All other types

－.407 (.036)*** －.395 (.036)***

Economic Resources: Monthly income (in NT$)

< 20,000 －.055 (.033) －.052 (.033) >= 50,000 to < 100,000 .066 (.021)** .063 (.021)**

>= 100,000 to < 150,000 .108 (.035)** .101 (.035)** >= 150,000 to < 200,000 .134 (.048)** .129 (.048)** >= 2000,000

.114 (.068) .109 (.068)

Socialization Resources Attend school events .015 (.006)** .009 (.006) Talk about school －.000 (.006) －.003 (.006) Talk about inner thoughts －.011 (.005)* －.013 (.005)* Checking homework .034 (.007)*** .030 (.007)*** Educational expectation High school diploma －.491 (.025)*** －.486 (.025)*** Graduate school .407 (.018)*** .404 (.018)*** No specific expectation －.055 (.034) －.051 (.034) Network Resources Visit relatives .050 (.011)*** Knowing other parents .048 (.013)*** Control Variables Male －.057 (.018)** －.057 (.018)** Sib size －.065 (.009)*** －.064 (.009)*** Ethnicity Hakka －.134 (.032)*** －.136 (.032)*** Mainlander －.015 (.033) －.013 (.032) Aborigine －.538 (.045)*** －.549 (.045)*** Other －.238 (.080)** －.237 (.082)** Parental Education Both junior high level or below －.209 (.029)*** －.210 (.029)*** One senior high level and the other

junior high level or below －.089 (.027)** －.088 (.027)**

One college level and the other senior high level

.180 (.026)*** .178 (.027)***

Both college level .287 (.033)*** .282 (.034)*** One graduate school level and the

other college level .440 (.044)*** .435 (.044)***

Constant .074 (.043) －.011 (.042) R2 .294 .297 d. f. 27, 332 29, 332 F 171.07*** 162.75*** * p <= .05 ** p <= .01 *** p<= .001

Table 6. Regression models for the 10th graders’ ability scores (N = 12,320) Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Independent variables B (SE B) B (SE B.) B (SE B.) Types of Family Structure Multigenerational intact .048 (.030) .082 (.028)** .082 (.027)** Multigenerational with

single-parent －.029 (.070) －.076 (.074) .006 (.080)

Single-parent －.142 (.054)** －.156 (.043)*** －.075 (.040) All other types

－.353 (.056)*** －.337 (.049)*** －.312 (.045)***

Economic Resources: Monthly income (in NT$)

< 20,000 －.188 (.065)** >= 50,000 to < 100,000 .171 (.031)***

>= 100,000 to < 150,000 .317 (.045)*** >= 150,000 to < 200,000 .388 (.075)*** >= 2000,000

.401 (.089)***

Socialization Resources Attend school events Talk about school Talk about inner thoughts Checking homework Educational expectation High school diploma Graduate school No specific expectation Network Resources Visit relatives Knowing other parents Control Variables Male .095 (.064) .086 (.064) Sib size －.083 (.015)*** －.085 (.014)*** Ethnicity Hakka －.108 (.068) －.111 (.067) Mainlander －.029 (.054) －.044 (.053) Aborigine －.575 (.095)*** －.540 (.091)*** Other －.381 (.165)* －.350 (.174)* Parental Education Both junior high level or

below －.275 (.044)*** －.209 (.040)***

One senior high level and the other junior high level or below

－.155 (.040)*** －.120 (.036)***

One college level and the other senior high level

.237 (.042)*** .195 (.039)***

Both college level .416 (.050)*** .332 (.045)*** One graduate school level

and the other college level

.758 (.077)*** .593 (.068)***

Constant －.174 (.063)** －.044 (.063) －.135 (.060)* R2 .009 .130 .148 d. f. 4, 259 15, 259 20, 259 F 12.68*** 17.75*** 16.41*** * p <= .05 ** p <= .01 *** p<= .001

Table 6. (continued) Model 4 Model 5 Independent variables B (SE B) B (SE B) Types of Family Structure Multigenerational intact .073 (.025)** .073 (.024)** Multigenerational with

single-parent .029 (.073) .035 (.073)

Single-parent －.044 (.039) －.044 (.039) All other types

－.231 (.045)*** －.217 (.045)***

Economic Resources: Monthly income (in NT$)

< 20,000 －.159 (.059)** －.160 (.060)** >= 50,000 to < 100,000 .109 (.026)*** .107 (.025)***

>= 100,000 to < 150,000 .202 (.038)*** .192 (.037)*** >= 150,000 to < 200,000 .213 (.062)*** .204 (.061)*** >= 2000,000

.254 (.085)** .250 (.085)**

Socialization Resources Attend school event .046 (.009)*** .039 (.009)*** Talk about school .022 (.008)** .020 (.008)* Talk about inner thoughts －.021 (.007)** －.023 (.007)** Checking homework －.026 (.008)*** －.028 (.008)*** Educational expectation High school diploma －.516 (.064)*** －.515 (.063)*** Graduate school .555 (.046)*** .550 (.046)*** No specific expectation .004 (.044) .009 (.043) Network Resources Visit relatives .026 (.012)* Knowing other parents .079 (.020)*** Control Variables Male .074 (.055) .075 (.055) Sib size －.076 (.012)*** －.073 (.012)*** Ethnicity Hakka －.103 (.056) －.104 (.056) Mainlander －.040 (.047) －.040 (.047) Aborigine －.530 (.080)*** －.537 (.078)*** Other －.352 (.152)* －.3228 (.149)* Parental Education Both junior high level or below －.136 (.035)*** －.134 (.035)*** One senior high level and the other

junior high level or below －.080 (.031)** －.078 (.031)*

One college level and the other senior high level

.146 (.033)*** .144 (.033)***

Both college level .237 (.037)*** .235 (.037)*** One graduate school level and the

other college level .431 (.053)*** .418 (.051)***

Constant －.244 (.066)*** －.308 (.067)*** R2 .240 .242 d. f. 27, 259 29, 259 F 20.88*** 20.25*** * p <= .05 ** p <= .01 *** p<= .001