IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jocebs/v15y2017i4p423-436.html

The impact of parental education on children’s outcomes in China

Author

Listed:
  • Wenya Cheng

Abstract

This paper exploits the exogenous shock to basic education during the Chinese Cultural Revolution to estimate the causal relationship between parental schooling and children’s educational attainment in China. Using deviations of cohort graduation rates from predicted education trends as instruments for parents’ education, the results indicate that an additional year of parental education increases children’s probability of completing junior and senior high schools by 7.94 and 9.76%, respectively. Parental education not only has positive and significant effects on children’s schooling outcomes, its importance also increases with children’s education level. These findings suggest that public investment in education has important long-term effects on individual’s educational achievement.

Suggested Citation

  • Wenya Cheng, 2017. "The impact of parental education on children’s outcomes in China," Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(4), pages 423-436, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jocebs:v:15:y:2017:i:4:p:423-436
    DOI: 10.1080/14765284.2017.1318251
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/14765284.2017.1318251
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/14765284.2017.1318251?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pekkarinen, Tuomas & Pekkala, Sari & Uusitalo, Roope, 2006. "Educational policy and intergenerational income mobility: evidence from the Finnish comprehensive school reform," Working Paper Series 2006:13, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    2. Gary S. Becker, 1962. "Investment in Human Capital: A Theoretical Analysis," NBER Chapters, in: Investment in Human Beings, pages 9-49, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Lavy, Victor, 1996. "School supply constraints and children's educational outcomes in rural Ghana," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 291-314, December.
    4. Esther Duflo, 2001. "Schooling and Labor Market Consequences of School Construction in Indonesia: Evidence from an Unusual Policy Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 795-813, September.
    5. Sandra E. Black & Paul J. Devereux & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2005. "Why the Apple Doesn't Fall Far: Understanding Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 437-449, March.
    6. Birdsall, Nancy, 1985. "Public inputs and child schooling in Brazil," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 67-86.
    7. Arnaud Chevalier, 2004. "Parental education and child’s education : a natural experiment," Working Papers 200414, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    8. Philip Oreopoulos & Marianne Page & Ann Huff Stevens, 2008. "The Intergenerational Effects of Worker Displacement," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(3), pages 455-483, July.
    9. Gary S. Becker & Nigel Tomes, 1994. "Human Capital and the Rise and Fall of Families," NBER Chapters, in: Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education, Third Edition, pages 257-298, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Eric Maurin & Sandra McNally, 2008. "Vive la Révolution! Long-Term Educational Returns of 1968 to the Angry Students," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(1), pages 1-33.
    11. John Giles & Albert Park & Meiyan Wang, 2019. "The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, Disruptions to Education, and the Returns to Schooling in Urban China," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 68(1), pages 131-164.
    12. Meng, Xin & Gregory, Bob, 2007. "Exploring the Impact of Interrupted Education on Earnings: The Educational Cost of the Chinese Cultural Revolution," IZA Discussion Papers 2548, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Holmlund, Helena, 2006. "Intergenerational Mobility and Assortative Mating. Effects of an Educational Reform," Working Paper Series 4/2006, Stockholm University, Swedish Institute for Social Research.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Polina Bugakova & Ilya Prakhov, 2020. "Regional Accessibility Of Higher Education In Russia," HSE Working papers WP BRP 58/EDU/2020, National Research University Higher School of Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. 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.
    2. Meng, Xin & Zhao, Guochang, 2021. "The long shadow of a large scale education interruption: The intergenerational effect," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    3. Nicolas Fleury & Fabrice Gilles, 2015. "A meta-regression analysis on intergenerational transmission of education: publication bias and genuine empirical effect," TEPP Working Paper 2015-02, TEPP.
    4. Marie Baguet & Céline Lecavelier des Etangs-Levallois, 2017. "Instrumenting education in France: Using May 1968 events as a natural experiment?," Thema Working Papers 2017-13, THEMA (Théorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), CY Cergy-Paris University, ESSEC and CNRS.
    5. Richard Akresh & Daniel Halim & Marieke Kleemans, 2023. "Long-Term and Intergenerational Effects of Education: Evidence from School Construction in Indonesia," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 133(650), pages 582-612.
    6. Anna Christina D'Addio, 2007. "Intergenerational Transmission of Disadvantage: Mobility or Immobility Across Generations?," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 52, OECD Publishing.
    7. Checchi, Daniele & Fiorio, Carlo V. & Leonardi, Marco, 2013. "Intergenerational persistence of educational attainment in Italy," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 229-232.
    8. Mihails Hazans & Ija Trapeznikova, 2006. "Access to Secondary Education in Albania: Incentives, Obstacles, and Policy Spillovers," SSE Riga/BICEPS Research Papers 2006-1, Baltic International Centre for Economic Policy Studies (BICEPS);Stockholm School of Economics in Riga (SSE Riga).
    9. Orazem, Peter F. & Glewwe, Paul & Patrinos, Harry, 2007. "The Benefits and Costs of Alternative Strategies to Improve Educational Outcomes," Working Papers 7352, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    10. Terry Sicular & Juan Yang, 2015. "The Returns to Schooling in Rural China: Evidence from the Cultural Revolution Education Expansion," University of Western Ontario, Centre for Human Capital and Productivity (CHCP) Working Papers 20152, University of Western Ontario, Centre for Human Capital and Productivity (CHCP).
    11. Hoyt Bleakley & Joseph Ferrie, 2016. "Shocking Behavior: Random Wealth in Antebellum Georgia and Human Capital Across Generations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(3), pages 1455-1495.
    12. Holmlund, Helena & Lindahl, Mikael & Plug, Erik, 2010. "The Causal Eff ect of Parent’s Schooling on Children’s Schooling," Working Paper Series, Center for Labor Studies 2010:8, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    13. Hu, Yuan & Behrman, Jere R. & Zhang, Junsen, 2021. "The causal effects of parents’ schooling on children's schooling in urban China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 258-276.
    14. Antoni, Manfred, 2011. "Lifelong learning inequality? The relevance of family background for on-the-job training," IAB-Discussion Paper 201109, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    15. Nathan Fiala & Ana Garcia-Hernandez & Kritika Narula & Nishith Prakash, 2022. "Wheels of Change: Transforming Girls’ Lives with Bicycles," Working papers 2022-04, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    16. Sari Pekkala Kerr & Tuomas Pekkarinen & Roope Uusitalo, 2013. "School Tracking and Development of Cognitive Skills," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(3), pages 577-602.
    17. Robert Lucas & Sari Kerr, 2013. "Intergenerational income immobility in Finland: contrasting roles for parental earnings and family income," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(3), pages 1057-1094, July.
    18. Ding, Xiaozhou & Song, Yaxiang, 2025. "Maternal education and early childhood outcomes in China," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    19. Holmlund, Helena, 2007. "A Researcher's Guide to the Swedish Compulsory School Reform," Working Paper Series 9/2007, Stockholm University, Swedish Institute for Social Research.
    20. Helena Holmlund & Mikael Lindahl & Erik Plug, 2011. "The Causal Effect of Parents' Schooling on Children's Schooling: A Comparison of Estimation Methods," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(3), pages 615-651, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:jocebs:v:15:y:2017:i:4:p:423-436. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RCEA20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.