Changing Associations between Extended Family’s Education and Children’s Educational Attainment across Cohorts

Aguru Ishibashi , Center for Social Data Structuring

This study examines how the association between extended family’s educational background—parents, grandparents, and uncles/aunts—and children’s educational achievements has changed over time in Japan. Using three nationally representative surveys (NFRJ2008, NFRJ2019, and ESSM2013) comprising 8,616 cases, binary logit models assess cohort-based variations from the 1960s to the 1990s. The analysis reveals that when only parents are considered, the intergenerational association appears stable. However, incorporating other relatives shows a declining parental effect, a temporary rise in the influence of uncles and aunts among the 1970s–1980s cohorts, and a growing effect of grandparents for children born since the 1990s. These findings suggest a gradual shift in the sources of kin-based inequality. The results underscore the importance of adopting an extended-kin perspective in stratification research.

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 Presented in Session P2. Families, Fertility, and the Life Course 2