Abstract
We investigated the role of teenage everyday social ties in educational outcomes by examining the association between teenage time use and educational attainment in adulthood. The sample consisted of young people aged 10–18 from the 1979 Finnish Time Use Survey, and the same respondents’ educational attainment later in life recorded from population register data at the year of 40th birthday (n = 366 men and 393 women). We assessed the associations of time spent with the parents, on studying, leisure activities, as well as social connectedness with friends and participation in extracurricular activities, with educational outcomes. Our findings indicated that time spent with the father is positively associated with the likelihood of completing tertiary education for both daughters and sons. In particular, time spent with lower-education fathers was associated with teenagers’ future tertiary education. However, intense friendships and participation in extracurricular activities were not associated with academic achievement later in life. The findings suggest that educational attainment is partly explained by teenage time spent with the family. Less-educated fathers can enhance the attainment of higher education of their children by spending more time with their teenage children.
Highlights
Youth is a period of life which requires continuity in family interactions, and detaching oneself from family networks (Crosnoe and Trinitapoli 2008; Holland et al 2007)
We first considered whether the education of parents was associated with time use, since time use of adolescents is most likely related to the educational attainment of parents per se
As for study and leisure time use and time spent with friends, we found no associations between time use in teenage years and educational attainment later in life
Summary
Youth is a period of life which requires continuity in family interactions, and detaching oneself from family networks (Crosnoe and Trinitapoli 2008; Holland et al 2007). We took a multidimensional look at teenagers’ everyday social lives and analysed to what extent time with parents and spent on social activity were associated with educational attainment later in life. We estimated both families’ and friends’ exclusive social relationships (i.e., “strong” social ties) and participation in extracurricular social activity (i.e., “weak” social ties; Ferlander 2007; Holland et al 2007; Snellman et al 2015; Weininger et al 2015). There is a scarcity of longitudinal data that makes it possible to explore the long-term impacts of youths’ social ties and everyday life
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