The Relationship Between Coresidence with Grandparents and Academic Performance of 15-Year-Old Students from Two-Parent and One-Parent Families

Abstract

This article investigates the association between coresidence with grandparents in three-generational households and the academic performance of 15-year-old students in the Czech Republic. The conceptual part focuses on intergenerational relationships and multigenerational coresidence in the Czech Republic and summarises past research on the links between coresidence with grandparents, family structure, and academic performance. The aim of this article is to find out if there is an association between coresidence with grandparents and an adolescent's academic performance, and if there is to discover whether the association is different for two-parent and one-parent families and whether it can be explained by the families' socioeconomic status. Data from PISA 2012 are used to investigate the association with mathematics, reading, and science literacy test scores as an indicator of school achievement. The results of the analysis revealed a weak positive association between coresidence with grandparents and adolescents' academic performance. The association becomes statistically significant when controlling for socioeconomic status and is not significantly different in two-parent and one-parent families. The results suggest that there is a positive association between three-generational coresidence and 15-year-old students' academic performance, but it is partially suppressed by the families' socioeconomic status.