Can Increased Educational Attainment Among Lower-Educated Mothers Reduce Inequalities in Children's Skill Development?
Can Increased Educational Attainment Among Lower-Educated Mothers Reduce Inequalities in Children's Skill Development?
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DOI：
10.1007/s13524-017-0637-4
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发表时间：
2018-03
期刊：
影响因子：
3.5
通讯作者：
Negraia, Daniela V
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Augustine, Jennifer March;Negraia, Daniela V
分层研究的丰富传统已经在母亲的教育和预测儿童自身流动性的儿童技能之间建立了强有力的联系。然而，这项研究没有考虑到许多美国妇女在生完孩子后完成了学业。这一趋势提出了一些问题，即母亲受教育程度的提高是否能改善其子女的技能发展，以及与母亲在出生前完成相同学位的子女相比，这些成就是否足以减少技能方面的不平等。为了回答这些问题，我们利用了一个具有全国代表性的母亲和儿童参加全国纵向调查（NLSY 79和CNLY），随机和固定效应技术，并重复测量儿童的认知和非认知技能。与现有的研究和理论相反，我们的研究结果表明，儿童出生后获得的教育程度与儿童技能的提高无关。这些研究结果表明，当子女出生后获得教育时，母亲教育的代际回报较弱，从而为长期存在的代际流动模型提供了实质性的改进。结果还突出了两代政策方法在减少后代不平等方面的局限性。
A rich tradition of stratification research has established a robust link between mothers’ education and the skills in children that forecast children’s own mobility. Yet, this research has failed to consider that many U.S. women are now completing their education after having children. Such a trend raises questions about whether increases in mothers’ educational attainment can improve their children’s skill development and whether these gains are enough to reduce inequalities in skills compared with children whose mothers completed the same degree before they were born. To answer these questions, we draw on a nationally representative sample of mothers and children participating in the National Longitudinal Surveys (NLSY79 and CNLY), random- and fixed-effects techniques, and repeated measures of children’s cognitive and noncognitive skills. Contrary to existing research and theory, our results reveal that educational attainment obtained after children’s births is not associated with an improvement in children’s skills. Such findings offer substantial refinement to a long-standing model of intergenerational mobility by suggesting that the intergenerational returns to mother’s education are weaker when education is acquired after children are born. Results also highlight the limits of two-generation policy approaches to reducing inequality in future generations.