Empirical evidence on the determinants of marital dissolution has shown the reversal over time of the educational gradient of divorce in many countries. However, results on Spain show that during the nineties the gradient was still positive or null. Here we first verify, comparing results from two datasets whether a reversal of the educational gradient of divorce has taken place in Spain recently. Secondly, we address the heterogeneous effects of parental separation on children’ educational outcome based on parental background. Evidence is divided between studies showing that socio-economically advantaged families buffer their offspring from the negative consequences of divorce and studies finding that the divorce penalty is instead smaller among children with a lower socioeconomic origin. We test both these hypotheses in Spain. As a third final contribution we link the two analyses. Since divorce is not a random event but it is more likely to occur in troubled families, there might be unobserved characteristics influencing both parental separation and children education. Through a Treatment Effect model for the consequences for children with divorced parents with different educational levels we aim at identifying the effect of divorce on children outcomes net of this selection mechanism.