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Why educated mothers don’t make educated children? A statistical study in the intergenerational transmission of schooling

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  • Pronzato, Chiara

Abstract

More educated parents are observed to have better educated children. From a policy point of view, however, it is important to distinguish between causation and simple selection. Researchers trying to control for unobserved ability have found conflicting results: in most cases, they have found a strong positive paternal effect but a negligible maternal effect. In this paper, I evaluate the impact on the robustness of the estimates of the characteristics of the samples commonly used in this strand of research: samples of small size, with low variability in parental education, not randomly selected from the population.

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  • Pronzato, Chiara, 2008. "Why educated mothers don’t make educated children? A statistical study in the intergenerational transmission of schooling," ISER Working Paper Series 2008-11, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:ese:iserwp:2008-11
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    Cited by:

    1. Luciano Canova & Alessandro Vaglio, 2011. "Why do educated mothers matter? A model of parental help," Working Papers 2011/3, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    2. Canova, Luciano & Vaglio, Alessandro, 2010. "Why do educated mothers matter? A model of parental help," Economics Discussion Papers 2010-29, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    3. Luciano Canova & Alessandro Vaglio, 2010. "Why do educated mothers matter? A model of parental help," Working Papers XREAP2010-17, Xarxa de Referència en Economia Aplicada (XREAP), revised Dec 2010.
    4. Leão Fernandes, Graça & Chagas Lopes, Margarida, 2008. "ISEG Undergraduate Students: Determinants of Academic Performance," MPRA Paper 22082, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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    JEL classification:

    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education

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