Item 1 of table 1 shows that, when other family resources are controlled, the percentage of students who drop out between spring of the sophomore year and spring of the senior year is 6 percentage points higher for children from single-parent families. Item 2 of table 1 shows that the rate is 6.4 percentage points higher for sophomores with four siblings than for those with otherwise equivalent family resources but only one sibling. Or, taking these two together, we can think of the ratio of adults to children as a measure of the social capital in the family available for the education of any one of them.

XREF: The adult-to-child ratio as a social capital measure parallels broader work on resource scarcity and household investment in children. Builds on: "Working parents and single parenthood deplete family social capital."

Coleman, SocialCapitalCreation-1988, loc. 170