The time parents spend with their children is the key to their academic success

Washington DC: It turns out that the time that parents spend with their children plays a determining role in their school results. In a new study, researchers badyzed data on Israeli children who lost a parent as a result of a death or divorce. They also found that the education level of the surviving or custodial parent had more impact than the level of education of the child. the parent who has died or left home.

The study also revealed that the longer a parent was away, the less his education had an impact on the success of the child. Bruce Weinberg, co-author of the study, said about this: "In the ongoing debate about what helps children succeed in their studies, we show that genetics is not the only one major factor. "

Weinberg added, "It's also about the time that parents spend with their children." The research was conducted by Eric Gould and Avi Simhon of the Hebrew University in Israel, as well as by Weinberg.

The study was accepted for publication in the Journal of Labor Economics and will be published on February 4, 2018 on the National Bureau of Economic Research website.

The study looked at more than 22,000 Israeli children who had lost a parent by the age of 18 and were looking at whether or not they had pbaded the registration exam, a high-stakes test required for attendance. from the college. About 57% of high school students in the country pbad the test.

The researchers began the study by examining children who had lost one of the parents, Weinberg added, adding, "We found that if a mother died, her education would become less important for her child to pbad the test or not. , while the father's education becomes more important. If a father dies, the opposite happens. "

In other words, said Gould, parenting counts. He added, "Student success is not just about smart parents with smart kids." The study's findings rejected the argument that parents' income is really what helps children of highly educated people to succeed in their studies.

If that were the case, then losing a father would have to hurt the children more academically than losing a mother, because fathers tend to earn more. Weinberg added that they found that a loss of mother, who tends to spend more time than the father with her children, had a greater effect than the loss of a father in our study.

The study found that the negative effect of a mother's loss on school success could at least be partially mitigated if the child had a mother-in-law. If the father does not remarry, the effect of the loss is more serious: no one can compensate for the loss of the mother, with the exception of the father.

However, the study found no difference between the educational success of children whose mothers remarried after the death of their father and those of others.

This may be because mothers' levels of education generally have more impact on the success of their children than that of fathers, because of the time mothers spend with their children.

In addition, the results showed that mothers' education was more closely related to the educational success of children in large families, as women with more children spent more time with their children and less time on the outside, according to the findings.

Overall, the effects of losing a parent were stronger in girls than in boys, the study showed.

Similar results were also observed in children whose parents had divorced. The level of education of the mother – with which the child generally lived – had a greater effect on academic success than the education of the other parent, Weinberg said.