Violent Conflict and Family Investment in Education
Year: 2026
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: When does violent conflict intensify rather than suppress investment in children’s education? We argue that under conflicts characterized by selective violence and partial preservation of civilian infrastructure, families respond to uncertainty by reallocating resources toward portable forms of capital—most notably, education. Using retrospective data from Spain and a regression discontinuity design, we compare cohorts who reached school age during the Civil War (1936–1939) with adjacent birth cohorts. The baseline regression discontinuity design provides little robust evidence of an overall total effect of war exposure. Exploratory conditional specifications that adjust for educational supply show a +14 percentage point discontinuity in primary school completion and a +6 percentage point discontinuity in lower secondary completion. Because educational supply may itself have been affected by the war, these conditional estimates are consistent with a positive demand-side response that may have been offset in the total effect by supply-side constraints. At the primary level, gains were largest among children from less educated households, suggesting partial equalization of educational opportunity. These findings propose a conditional theory of how violent disruption reshapes family investment strategies and, through them, patterns of educational inequality.
Source: Sociological Science
DOI: 10.15195/v13.a51
Authors: Dulce Manzano, Héctor Cebolla-Boado
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $575
OpenAlex ID: W7222219233