Parent's Schooling and Child Well-Being in Taiwan

描述(申请人提供)：本项目的具体目的是评估母亲和父亲的教育对台湾儿童健康和儿童教育结果的因果影响。对这一专题的兴趣可以追溯到最近对人力资本及其两个最重要的组成部分--健康和教育--的作用的关注，特别是在决定经济增长方面，以及许多研究表明父母的教育对衡量儿童福祉的各种措施具有积极和重大的影响。至于这种相关性是否反映了更多受教育程度与幸福感提高之间的因果关系，人们的共识要少得多。许多研究人员认为，忽略“第三个变量”，例如未来的取向或遗传能力，可能会导致就学和幸福感上升。这项研究将利用一项自然实验来评估台湾父母受教育的因果影响。1968年，台湾政府将义务教育从六年延长到九年。为了适应初中招生的预期增长，1968年，政府新开办了140所初中，增长了70%。这项研究将使用1948年至1968年出生的年龄在义务教育改革期间出生的同龄人的差异，以及不同地区12-14岁儿童新开初中的差异(计划强度)。它将通过使用出生地区互动中的队列和计划强度作为两阶段最小二乘和两步估计程序中的教育工具，来评估父母受教育对各种儿童幸福指标的影响。婴儿的健康结果包括：出生体重；低体重和极低体重出生的概率；新生儿和新生儿后死亡的概率，是否对出生体重进行调整；开始产前护理的三个月；母亲吸烟；避孕措施；以及母乳喂养。19岁以下儿童的健康结果包括儿童死亡的概率；体检结果；接受疫苗接种；吸烟；饮酒；体育锻炼；以及适当饮食的知识。教育结果包括高中和大学入学考试成绩；完成高中学业的概率；进入大学的可能性；以及所上大学的排名。生育结果是相关的，因为家庭中的孩子数量和每个孩子的幸福之间可能会有权衡，包括母亲第一次出生的年龄和希望的家庭规模。收集的数据包括1978-2000年的所有出生和婴幼儿死亡证明；带有考试成绩的文件；以及三项微观层面的调查。

DESCRIPTION (provide by the applicant): The specific aims of this project are to estimate the causal impacts of mother's education and father's education on child health and child educational outcomes in Taiwan. Interest in this topic can be traced to the recent focus on the role of human capital in general and its two most important components - health and schooling - in particular in the determination of economic growth and to the evidence in many studies that parents' education has a positive and significant effect on a variety of measures of child well-being. There is much less consensus as to whether this correlation reflects causality from more schooling to increases in well-being. A number of investigators have argued that omitted "third variables" such as a future orientation or heritable ability may cause both schooling and well-being to rise. The study will exploit a natural experiment to estimate the causal impact of the mothers 'and fathers' education in Taiwan. In 1968, the Taiwan government extended compulsory education from six to nine years. To accommodate the expected increase in enrollment in junior high schools, the government opened 140 new junior high schools, a seventy-percent increase, in 1968. The study will use variations across cohorts born between 1948 and 1968 in exposure to compulsory education reform and across regions in new junior high school openings per child ages 12-14(program intensity). It will estimate the impact of the mothers and fathers schooling on a variety of measures of child well-being by using cohort and program intensity in region of birth interactions as instruments for schooling in two-stage least squares and two-step estimation procedures. Health outcomes for infants include birthweight; the probabilities of low- and very low-weight births; the probabilities of neonatal and post-neonatal death with and without adjustment for birthweight; the trimester in which prenatal care began; maternal cigarette smoking; contraceptive practices; and breastfeeding. Health outcomes for children through age 19 include the probability of child death; physical examination outcomes; receipt of vaccinations; cigarette smoking; alcohol use; physical exercise; and knowledge of appropriate diet. Educational outcomes include scores on senior high school and university entrance examinations; the probability of completing senior high school; the probability of entering university; and rank of university attended. Fertility outcomes, relevant because there may be tradeoffs between the number of children in the family and the well-being of each child, include mother's age at first birth and desired family size. The data collections are all birth and infant and child death certificates for 1978-2000; files with test scores; and three micro level surveys.