School Choice Maternal Employment and Child Achievement

描述（由申请人提供）：本研究将分析学校投入和父母投入之间的相互作用和相互依存关系，作为儿童教育成就的决定因素。本研究考虑了学校和父母投入决定的两个重要方面：父母选择居住在哪个上学地区，以及母亲决定工作，作为母亲直接用于子女教育的时间的代理。发展了一个居住地点和母亲就业决策及其对儿童结局影响的行为模型。使用独特的，纵向的，母亲-孩子的数据从全国青年纵向调查匹配的详细数据在所有美国学校，我们估计的参数的理论模型。通过对偏好和生产函数参数的估计，可以详细说明学校投入和母亲就业决定影响儿童的机制，以及政策对移徙、妇女就业和儿童结果的影响。了解学校质量和父母行为影响儿童发展的机制，对于科学、决策者和父母决定向儿童分配资源非常重要。现有的研究通常分析学校的特点和父母的投入，如产妇就业的重要性孤立。由于这两种类型的投入不可能相互独立地确定，从教育生产函数规范中省略投入很可能导致内生偏差。这表明了文献中发现的估计数差异很大的一个潜在重要原因。这项研究项目应该有助于解决许多相互矛盾的估计的重要性，父母的行为和学校的投入对儿童的成就。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This study will analyze the interactions and interdependencies between school inputs and parental inputs as determinants of a child's educational achievement. This study considers two important dimensions of school and parental input decisions: the parents' choice of which school attendance area to live in, and the mother's decision to work, as a proxy for maternal time directly devoted to child education. A behavioral model of residential location and maternal employment decisions and their effects on child outcomes is developed. Using unique, longitudinal, mother-child data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth matched with detailed data on all U.S. schools, we estimate the parameters of the theoretical model. Estimates of the preference and production function parameters will make it possible to provide a detailed characterization of the mechanisms through which school inputs and maternal employment decisions affect children, and the effects of policy on migration, female employment and child outcomes. Understanding the mechanisms through which school quality and parental behaviors affect children's development is important for science, and for policy makers and parents in making decisions about the allocation of resources to children. Existing studies typically analyze the importance of school characteristics and parental inputs such as maternal employment in isolation. As both types of inputs are unlikely to be determined independently from each other, the omission of inputs from an educational production function specification is likely to result in endogeneity biases. This suggests a potentially important reason for the great variability in estimates found in the literature. This research project should help to resolve many of the conflicting estimates of the importance of parental behaviors and school inputs on child achievement.