A recent study has shown that children of single parents score lower on math and science tests than children from two-parent families, and the problem could be linked to . . . maternity leave?

The idea may not be so far-fetched, said Suet-Ling Pong, co-author of the research study paper and associate professor of education and sociology.

"We tried to analyze whether single parent homes have any effect on the test scores of children based on a math and science test that was given to 9-year-olds in 40 different countries," Pong said. "We focused on 25 of the countries and found that more than half of them showed a negative relationship between the membership of single-parent homes and test scores of the children."

Pong and Gillian Hampden-Thompson, the other author of the study and a graduate student in educational policy and theory, focused on 10 of the 25 countries and then compared them to the United States.

"We chose countries that possess many similarities to the U.S. linguistically and culturally," Pong said. "We then looked at the performance in children of single-parent and two-parent homes and discovered that the largest performance gap between the two groups was found in the U.S."

But what does this have to do with maternity leave?

Pong and Hampden-Thompson compared various characteristics of the countries, one being national family policies.

"The U.S. has hardly any national family policies compared to other countries," Pong said. "Some policies that are used elsewhere include government-provided family and children allowances to households, free childcare for low-income families, and maternity leave benefits."

The implication is that more government help would aid children of single-parent homes. Therefore, the lack of family policies in the U.S. seems to have detrimental effects on the children's test scores.

So if the U.S. would simply implement benefits such as paid maternity leave, then the problem would be solved, right?

Not exactly.

"We don't want to import policies from other countries because our country is organized differently," Pong said. "For example, we emphasize work ethics more than some other countries. So what works in one country will not necessarily work in another."

If the problem is attributed partly to family policies, though, this does not explain why there is a difference between single-parent and two-parent homes.

"Most of it has to do with capital," Hampden-Thompson said. "Normally there are more money and resources in a two-parent family than in a single-parent one. Divorced parents generally must move from wealthier areas to poorer areas, thus usually poorer school districts."

Money is not the only consequence that many children of single parents face, however.

"Research suggests that single parents juggle between job and family, so kids have lower-level monitoring and have stress involved in divorce," Pong said.

Most of the factors that seem to influence the test scores are out of the control of parents, therefore with the possible exception of restructuring the government, there does not seem to be a way to rectify the problem.

"America is a society that culturally would not accept more welfare," Hampden-Thompson said.

Although there may not be much light at the end of the tunnel yet, Pong and Hampden-Thompson said that the amount of single parents in the U.S. has decreased within the past year, so the problem is not likely to get worse any time soon.