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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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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 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. The part of the educational distribution involved in any identification strategy seems to be a key aspect to take into account to reconcile previous results from the literature.

Suggested Citation

  • Chiara Pronzato, 2008. "Why Educated Mothers don't make Educated Children? A Statistical Study in the Intergenerational Transmission of Schooling," Discussion Papers 563, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    • Handle: RePEc:ssb:dispap:563
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    1. Jere R. Behrman & Mark R. Rosenzweig, 2005. "Does Increasing Women's Schooling Raise the Schooling of the Next Generation? Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1745-1751, December.
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    11. de Haan, Monique & Plug, Erik, 2006. "Estimates of the Effect of Parents’ Schooling on Children’s Schooling Using Censored and Uncensored Samples," IZA Discussion Papers 2416, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
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    16. Light Audrey & Flores-Lagunes Alfonso, 2006. "Measurement Error in Schooling: Evidence from Samples of Siblings and Identical Twins," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-35, May.
    17. Bound, John & Solon, Gary, 1999. "Double trouble: on the value of twins-based estimation of the return to schooling," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 169-182, April.
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    Cited by:

    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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).
    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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    More about this item

    Keywords

    intergenerational transmission; education; twin-estimator; sibling-estimator; power of the test;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education

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