Cultural and Material Resources of Parents and Grandparents and the Educational Outcome of Grandchildren in Europe

Abstract

Educational attainment depends on parent's material and cultural resources. In many families, the grandparents may also provide resources that directly or indirectly support their children's educational careers. That is why we applied a multigenerational view and tested under what conditions the resources of the grandparents are relevant for the educational careers of the grandchildren.Using life-history data from the third wave of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement (SHARE) in Europe, we linked the educational outcomes of children with the cultural and material resources of their parents and grandparents. The results show that the impact of grandparental resources is not negligible. Especially when parents lack resources, the resources of the grandparents can be used as insurance and as a substitute for a lack of parental resources. Grandparents also act as an insurance against economic deficits in the country, specifically grandparental resources can compensate for missing public investments in education.