Family Structure and Child's Academic Achievement in Japan: Testing the Moderating Effect of Regional Context

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Abstract

Many studies in the western societies have shown the negative effect of single parenthood on child’s educational outcome. However, the evidence of such association is scarce in Japan, and few studies that have examined the issue in Japan assumes a uniform mechanism within Japan.
I use the six-grade data of 2013 National Achievement Study (MEXT), which was implemented with the first nationally representative parental survey through schools in Japan. I employ a multiple group SEM analysis to highlight how the effect and the underlying mechanism of family structure on children’s academic achievement may vary by regional context.
The main findings are as follows: (1) There is a negative association between single parenthood and student achievement, and the association is larger in metropolitan district. (2) The association is mediated by both parent’s economic and interpersonal resources. Single parenthood is related to deprivation of economic and interpersonal resources, which in turn, are related to children’s disadvantage in educational outcome. (3) Single-parent families in both contexts similarly possess less economic and interpersonal resources compared to two-parent families, but to what extent the lack of resources provide disadvantage differ by regional context. Economic resources has larger effect on student achievement in metropolitan district, whereas interpersonal resources has larger effect in small-to-medium-sized district.
These findings suggest that measures to increase economic and interpersonal resources of single-parent families are necessary. In Japan, the large earning disparities between men and women, and between regular and irregular employment, the lack of child support agreement, as well as the limited child rearing allowance need to be addressed. In addition, the situation that single parents are less likely to be involved in the school and the community, and to interact with their children call for services, information, and norms to compensate for their lack of interpersonal resources.

Author

• Yuko Nonoyama-Tarumi, Musashi University