Divorce Effects on Teenagers’ Higher Education: Evidence From One Million Siblings in Taiwan

We construct a unique sibling dataset by linking multiple comprehensive administrative data sources in Taiwan. Using data on one million siblings, we estimate the effect of parental divorce occurring at ages 13‒18 on children's university admission. Our approach leverages differences in admission outcomes between siblings who experienced parental divorce before the national college entrance test at age 18 and those who experienced it afterward. The mother fixed-effects estimates reveal a significantly negative impact of parental divorce on children's university admission. Adolescents who experienced parental divorce faced a 10.8% reduction in the likelihood of entering any university and a 15.9% reduction in the likelihood of being admitted to a first-tier university. Additional analyses show that younger adolescents are more vulnerable to the negative effects of parental divorce than their older counterparts. Furthermore, the study finds nonnegative effects of parental job loss on university admission, suggesting that the adverse impacts of parental divorce are unlikely to operate through income disadvantage.