Educational Attainment in Blended Families

In this paper we compare the educational attainment of birth and non-birth children of women in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). We find that children raised by step, adoptive or foster mothers obtain significantly less education on average than do the birth children of the same women. Controlling for the women's fixed effects, the non-birth children of a woman receive on average one year less schooling than do her birth children, with the educational break occurring at the time children finish high school and begin college.