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Does Human Capital Transfer from Parent to Child? The Intergenerational Effects of Compulsory Schooling

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Author Info
Philip Oreopoulos
Marianne E. Page
Ann Huff Stevens

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Abstract

The strong correlation between parents' economic status and that of their children has been well-documented, but little is known about the extent to which this is a causal phenomenon. This paper attempts to improve our understanding of the causal processes that contribute to intergenerational immobility by exploiting historical changes in compulsory schooling laws that affected the educational attainment of parents without affecting their innate abilities or endowments. We examine the influence of parental compulsory schooling on grade retention status for children aged 7 to 15 using the 1960, 1970 and 1980 U.S. Censuses. Our estimates indicate that a one-year increase in the education of either parent reduces the probability that a child repeats a grade by between two and seven percentage points. Among 15 to 16 year olds living at home, we also estimate that parental compulsory schooling significantly lowers the likelihood of dropping out. These findings suggest that education policies may be able to reduce part of the intergenerational transmission of inequality.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 10164.

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Date of creation: Dec 2003
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10164

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I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
J6 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
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    Other versions:
  3. Arnaud Chevalier, 2004. "Parental Education and Childs Education: A Natural Experiment," CEE Discussion Papers 0040, Centre for the Economics of Education, LSE. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Markus Jäntti & Eva Österbacka & Oddbjörn Raaum & Tor Eriksson & Anders Björklund, 2002. "Brother correlations in earnings in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden compared to the United States," Journal of Population Economics, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 757-772. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  5. John Bound & David A. Jaeger, 1996. "On the Validity of Season of Birth as an Instrument in Wage Equations: A Comment on Angrist & Krueger's "Does Compulsory School Attendance Affect Scho," NBER Working Papers 5835, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Daron Acemoglu & Joshua Angrist, 1999. "How Large are the Social Returns to Education? Evidence from Compulsory Schooling Laws," Working papers 99-30, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
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  11. Philip Oreopoulos, 2003. "Do Dropouts Drop Out Too Soon? Evidence from Changes in School-Leaving Laws," Working Papers oreo-03-01, University of Toronto, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  12. Kate Antonovics & Arthur Goldberger, 2004. "Do Educated Women Make Bad Mothers? Twin Studies of the Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital," University of California at San Diego, Economics Working Paper Series 2003-10, Department of Economics, UC San Diego. [Downloadable!]
  13. Adriana Lleras-Muney, 2002. "The Relationship Between Education and Adult Mortality in the United States," NBER Working Papers 8986, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  16. Enrico Moretti, 2003. "Human Capital Externalities in Cities," NBER Working Papers 9641, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  17. Jere R. Behrman & Mark R. Rosenzweig, 2002. "Does Increasing Women's Schooling Raise the Schooling of the Next Generation?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(1), pages 323-334, March. [Downloadable!]
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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Chevalier, Arnaud & Harmon, Colm & O’Sullivan, Vincent & Walker, Ian, 2005. "The Impact of Parental Income and Education on the Schooling of Their Children," IZA Discussion Papers 1496, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Sandra Black & Paul Devereux & Kjell Salvanes, 2004. "Why the apple doesn't fall far: understanding intergenerational transmission of human capital," Working Papers in Applied Economic Theory 2004-12, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Gordon B. Dahl, 2005. "Early Teen Marriage and Future Poverty," NBER Working Papers 11328, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. John C. Bluedorn & Elizabeth U. Cascio, 2005. "Education and Intergenerational Mobility: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Purerto Rico," Economics Papers 2005-W21, Economics Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford. [Downloadable!]
  5. de Walque, Damien, 2005. "Parental education and children's schooling outcomes : is the effect nature, nurture, or both? evidence from recomposed families in Rwanda," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3483, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
  6. Björklund, Anders & Lindahl, Mikael & Plug, Erik, 2004. "Intergenerational Effects in Sweden: What Can We Learn from Adoption Data?," IZA Discussion Papers 1194, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  7. Sarah J. Reber, 2007. "School Desegregation and Educational Attainment for Blacks," NBER Working Papers 13193, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Checchi, Daniele & Fiorio, Carlo V. & Leonardi, Marco, 2008. "Intergenerational Persistence in Educational Attainment in Italy," IZA Discussion Papers 3622, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  9. Susan Dynarski, 2005. "Building the Stock of College-Educated Labor," NBER Working Papers 11604, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  10. Grant Johnston, 2004. "Healthy, wealthy and wise? A review of the wider benefits of education," Treasury Working Paper Series 04/04, New Zealand Treasury. [Downloadable!]
  11. Wolter Hassink & Hannah Kiiver, 2007. "Age-dependent Effects of Socio-economic Background on Educational Attainment - Evidence from Germany," Working Papers 07-26, Utrecht School of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  12. Elizabeth Cascio & Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, 2007. "First in the Class? Age and the Education Production Function," NBER Working Papers 13663, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Pipit Pitriyan, 2006. "The Impact of Child Labor on Child’s Education: The Case of Indonesia," Working Papers in Economics and Development Studies (WoPEDS) 200609, Department of Economics, Padjadjaran University, revised Aug 2006. [Downloadable!]
  14. Holmlund, Helena & Lindahl, Mikael & Plug, Erik, 2008. "The Causal Effect of Parent’s Schooling on Children’s Schooling: A Comparison of Estimation Methods," IZA Discussion Papers 3630, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  15. Christian N. Brinch, Bernt Bratsberg and Oddbjørn Raaum, 2008. "The Effects of an Upper Secondary Education Reform on the Attainment of Immigrant Youth," Discussion Papers 528, Research Department of Statistics Norway. [Downloadable!]
  16. Constant, Amelie & Zimmermann, Klaus F, 2004. "Occupational Choice Across Generations," CEPR Discussion Papers 4258, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
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