What Did You Do All Day?
Maternal Education and Child Outcomes
- Tahir Andrabi is a professor of economics at Pomona College. Jishnu Das is a senior economist in the Development Economics Research Group at the World Bank. Asim Ijaz Khwaja is a professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School
- The data used in this article can be obtained beginning May 2013 through April 2016 from tandrabi{at}pomona.edu.
Abstract
Does maternal education have an impact on children's educational outcomes even at the very low levels found in many developing countries? We use instrumental variables analysis to address this issue in Pakistan. We find that children of mothers with some education spend 72 more minutes per day on educational activities at home. Mothers with some education also spend more time helping their children with school work. In the subset that have test scores available, children whose mothers have some education have higher scores by 0.23–0.35 standard deviations. We do not find support for channels through which education affects bargaining power within the household.
- Accepted November 2011.
- © 2012 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
