Children's Educational Attainment Research Articles

Gender Heterogeneity and Inter-generational Transmission of Learning Ability in India

This article examines the role of gender heterogeneity in inter-generational transmission of learning efficiency, a proxy for scholastic ability. We use primary survey data of 1000 elementary students collected from 125 public schools in Uttar Pradesh in 2019. Efficiency scores calculated from data envelopment analysis by considering students’ academic test scores in various courses are used as a proxy for learning ability. First, we find strong evidence of inter-generational transmission of schooling of father, mother, and average parents to their children. Second, the study finds that a mother’s educational attainment in children’s learning efficiency is relatively more significant than that of the father. In addition, we observe the gender heterogeneous effect of parents’ education on children’s learning efficiency, where transmission effects in the case of girls show improvement if parents’ level of education increases. As a policy implication, the study highlights the importance of girls’ education, which not only narrows the gender gap in education but also facilitates the inter-generational transmission of learning, benefitting the family and society.

The Expanded Child Tax Credit and Educational Attainment in Rural, Majority-Minority Communities

<p><big>Despite the status of the United States as one of the world’s economic superpowers, the country is plagued by child poverty. The issue of child poverty is most prominent in rural, majority-minority communities, where years of limited opportunity, often created by systematic oppression, have created a vicious cycle of economic despair. There are a number of policies that have been explored which could limit the effects of child poverty, most notably the Expanded Child Tax Credit (ECTC), which was introduced as part of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021. This paper uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to thoroughly examine this policy (ECTC) and its potential to both cut child poverty in the short term and increase educational attainment and economic mobility in the long term for recipients. The ECTC program ended in 2022 and only lasted in a short period. By examining the impacts of a similar and long-standing but less accessible and generous program, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), on educational attainment in specific communities we can theorize and determine the significance the Expanded CTC would have. We use EITC program as a proxy of ECTC and reach inference of the long-term impact of ECTC program on children’s education attainment. The result of this research indicates a number of benefits of the Expanded Child Tax Credit, including its potential to cut child poverty and increase educational attainment, its impact on future economic prosperity in rural, majority-minority communities, and the policy’s ability to decrease economic disparities between non-metro and metropolitan areas.</big></p>

Children's Transitions to Adulthood and Midlife Parents' Depressive Symptoms and Activities of Daily Living Conditions in the United States.

Parents and children are close over the life course. However, these relationships often change as parents age and children enter adulthood. Today, the entrance into adulthood for children has become delayed and increasingly unstable. Such changes may interrupt the child's acquisition of resources used to support themselves and their midlife parents, having implications for parents' mental and physical health. The purpose of this study is to examine the role of adult children's transitions to adulthood on parents' mental and physical health. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) and the Add Health Parent Study (AHPS), we investigated how certain transitions to adulthood (e.g., education, marriage, residential independence, employment, parenthood, and incarceration) for children were linked to the mental and physical health of their midlife parents. In sum, we found that children's educational attainment was linked to fewer activities of daily living (ADL) limitations and depressive symptoms among parents. Children's marriage and employment were also associated with fewer ADL limitations among parents. Our findings reveal that adult children's circumstances are associated with the mental and physical health of their midlife parents.

Hazardous Child Labour, Psychosocial Functioning, and School Dropouts among Children in Bangladesh: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of UNICEF's Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS).

Child labour is a common financial coping strategy in poor households, especially in low-and middle-income countries with many children working under hazardous conditions. Little is known about the linkages between hazardous work conditions and psycho-social and educational outcomes. We analysed the Bangladesh Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (BMICS) round 6 to assess the association between the exposure variables, including child labour, hazardous child labour (HZCL) and hazardous work, and outcome variables, including psychosocial functioning difficulty and school dropout, in children aged 5 to 17 years. We conducted bivariable and multivariable analyses to examine the association. In the adjusted analyses, children engaged in HZCL had increased odds of psychosocial functioning difficulty (aOR: 1.41; 95% CI: 1.16-1.72) and school dropout (aOR: 5.65; 95% CI: 4.83-6.61) among 5-14-year-olds compared to children who did not engage in child labour and hazardous work. Other independent factors associated with psychosocial functioning difficulty and school dropout included being male, living in a deprived neighbourhood, being exposed to violent punishment, the caregiver's attitude towards physical punishment, the mother's functional difficulty and lower maternal education. The linkages between hazardous work and psychosocial functioning difficulty appear more prominent among children not in school. Further, the evidence on the relationship between hazardous work and school dropout is stronger among children with psychosocial functioning difficulty. Policies and programmes that target the most hazardous forms of work are likely to have the greatest benefits for children's mental health, social well-being and educational attainment.

Parental unemployment and children's educational attainment: How big is the role of aspirations?

Children exposed to parental unemployment have been found to lag behind in school, but research has struggled to pin down the underlying explanation. One hypothesis is that parental unemployment may dampen children's aspirations to do well and go far in school. Yet, few studies on parental unemployment have relied on actual measures of children's aspirations or devised a formal analysis of this mechanism. Using the UK Household Longitudinal Study (Waves 1-12, N=1067), I investigate the role of educational aspirations in children's General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) attainment. I compare adolescents exposed to parental unemployment before or only after the typical age at which GCSE exams are taken. In adjusted models, children exposed to parental unemployment before their GCSEs are around 6 percentage points less likely to attain any GCSE qualification by age 17. On average, children have high educational aspirations, although intentions to enrol in college or university are relatively lower among children exposed to an early spell of parental unemployment. Nevertheless, a hypothetical intervention setting these aspirations to the same level for all children only accounts for a modest portion of the educational penalty tied to an early spell of parental unemployment. Several sensitivity and robustness tests support this conclusion. This note seeks to stimulate more research on the mechanisms underpinning the intergenerational effects of unemployment. Findings cast doubts on the idea that children's aspirations, the target of broader policy discourse and interventions, are a crucial part of the equation.

Parental supervision positively impacts children's economic prospects two decades later: A prospective longitudinal study.

Upward income mobility is associated with better health outcomes and reduced stress. However, opportunities are unequally distributed, particularly so for those in rural communities and whose family have lower educational attainment. To test the impact of parental supervision on their children's income two decades later adjusting for parental economic and educational status. This study is a longitudinal, representative cohort study. From 1993-2000, annual assessments of 1,420 children were completed until age 16, then followed up at age 35, 2018-2021, for further assessment. Models tested direct effects of parental supervision on child income, and indirect effects via child educational attainment. This study is an ongoing longitudinal population-based study of families in 11 predominately rural counties of the Southeastern U.S. About 8% of the residents and sample are African American and fewer than 1% are Hispanic. American Indians make up 4% of the population in study but were oversampled to make up 25% of the sample. 49% of the 1,420 participants are female. 1258 children and parents were assessed for sex, race/ethnicity, household income, parent educational attainment, family structure, child behavioral problems, and parental supervision. The children were followed up at age 35 to assess their household income and educational attainment. Parental educational attainment, income, and family structure were strongly associated with their children's household income at age 35 (e.g., r = .392, p < .05). Parental supervision of the child was associated with increased household income for the child at age 35, adjusting for SES of the family of origin. Children of parents who did not engage in adequate supervision earned approximately $14,000 less/year (i.e., ~13% of the sample's median household income) than those who did. The association of parental supervision and child income at 35 was mediated by the child's educational attainment. This study suggests adequate parental supervision during early adolescence is associated with children's economic prospects two decades later, in part by improving their educational prospects. This is particularly important in areas such as rural Southeast U.S.

Intergenerational educational mobility in Sub-Saharan Africa

Research on social mobility in developing countries has been hampered by the coresidency criterion applied to most surveys. However, a recent study showed that for educational mobility, the intergenerational correlation (IGC) suffers from significantly less bias in coresident samples, and is also more robust for comparing mobility across sub-samples, time and varying coresidency rates. This study employs the IGC and census data from 22 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to investigate the association between parents’ and children's educational attainment for several cohorts born between the mid-1950s and early 1990s. According to the results, the SSA average IGC during the period was 0.4, with country averages between 0.3 and 0.5, which would indicate low to medium intergenerational educational persistence. Trend estimates, however, show that the IGC rose (mobility worsened) over the decades in several countries, as it did on average for the region as a whole.

Conflict or harmony? The impact of family cultural diversity on children's educational attainment

Studies have shown that various aspects of family are important for children's educational outcomes, but the intangible family cultural environment has often been overlooked. In particular, culturally diverse families are becoming more common, but how family cultural diversity affects parental behavior and children's development remains unclear. Using data from a nationally representative survey in China, and employing propensity score matching and an instrumental variable approach to address potential endogeneity, we examine the impact of family cultural diversity on children's educational attainment. We find that the cultural difference between parents has a significant positive effect on their children's years of schooling. Family cultural diversity enhances children's educational attainment through promoting family harmony. The process of adapting to cultural differences in the family, rather than causing family conflict, promotes a harmonious atmosphere with effective communication, which is beneficial for children's educational outcomes.

Fostering educational prosperity: A randomized controlled trial of home tutoring in foster care

AbstractThe educational gap between children in out‐of‐home care and their non‐placed peers is well‐documented. However, tutoring stands out as a promising intervention to raise children's educational attainment in out‐of‐home care. This study randomized 105 children in foster care (62% girls, aged 7–15 years [M = 10.3, SD = 2.0]) to the home tutoring program Foster Caregivers as Tutors (FCT) or regular public school services (treatment as usual [TAU]). In the FCT group, the foster caregivers tutored the children for 2.5 h/week for 40 weeks. The program effect is measured in learning and developmental outcomes, including reading and math ability, learning skills, IQ, executive function, and psychosocial function. Follow‐up was 17.5 months after baseline. The results show a significant effect over time in both groups on IQ (effect size [ES] = 0.40, P &lt; 0.001), verbal comprehension (ES = 0.29 P = 0.02) and perceptual reasoning (ES = 0.60, P &lt; 0.001) measured by WISC IV. Neither the FCT nor TAU provided any significant academic recovery in reading and math nor progression in executive function, learning skills or psychosocial function. These findings, implications for practice and future efforts to support the schooling of children in out‐of‐home care are discussed.

Karma evliliğin çocuk eğitimi üzerine etkisi

Bu çalışmada, Almanya veri seti kullanılarak karma evliliklerin çocukların eğitime katılımı üzerine etkisi incelenmektedir. Karma evlilik, herhangi bir ırka bağlı göçmen kişi ile yerli birinin evliliği şeklinde tanımlanmıştır. Çalışmanın amacı doğrultusunda Alman Sosyo Ekonomik Panel (G-SOEP) veri seti kullanılmıştır. Her bir karma evlilik türü için farklı sonuçlar elde edilmiştir Analizde farklı sonuçlar elde edildiğinden karma evliliklerin çocukların eğitime katılımı üzerine etkisini genellemek zor olmaktadır. Farklı sonuçlar elde edilmesi gösteriyor ki elde edilen sonuçlar karma evliliğin yapısından değil karma evlilik yapan baba ve annelerin kendilerine has özelliklerinden kaynaklanmaktadır. Bir diğer bulgu çocukların eğitime katılımını etkileyen önemli faktörlerden birinin okul ortamı olmasıdır. Çocukların okulda etnik kökenleri yüzünden zarar görüp görmedikleri ile ilgili değişken analize dahil edildiğinde, hem anne hem babası yerli olan çocuklara kıyasla karma evlilik yapmış aileye sahip olan çocuklar için pozitif bir etki bulunmuştur. Bu sonuç göstermektedir ki poltika yapıcılar kurumların potansiyel ayrımcılığa karşı farkındalıklarının oluşmasına büyük önem vermeil ve bütün çocuklara eğitimde eşit fırsatlar sunmalıdır.

INDIGENOUS PARENTS’ PERCEPTION OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF FORMAL EDUCATION IN MALAYSIA

Background and Purpose: Parents play a crucial role in children's educational attainment. Their perception influences their action in giving better formal education to their children. However, the scenario is different for the Indigenous community in Malaysia where formal education is deemed least important and there is a huge gap for Indigenous education attainment compared to the stream population. This paper aims to elucidate the parent perception of formal education effectiveness among the Indigenous community or Orang Asli (in the Malay language) in Terengganu, Malaysia.&#x0D; &#x0D; Methodology: The research using qualitative methods involved three Indigenous villages in the state of Terengganu. Data were collected through interviews, focus group discussions and observation. The informants consisted of Indigenous parents, teachers and the officers of the Department of Orang Asli Development (JAKOA).&#x0D; &#x0D; Findings: Results showed that parents' perceptions are generally stereotyped and unable to stimulate students’ interest. The common problem in teaching and learning is related to parents’ educational background, socioeconomic background, expectations, marital age, surrounding condition and awareness.&#x0D; &#x0D; Contributions: This study has given the real picture of Indigenous parents' perceptions toward formal education. The implications of Indigenous parents’ education problems are significantly associated with degrading interest among students in education, issues of attendance and students' academic performance.&#x0D; &#x0D; Keywords: Orang Asli, formal education, academic attainment, parent’s perception, Terengganu.&#x0D; &#x0D; Cite as: Mohd Noor, M. I., Abdullah, M. F., Tedong, P. A., Ahmad Zaini, A., Abd Kadir, N. A., &amp; Abdullah, M. T. (2023). Indigenous parents’ perception of the effectiveness of formal education in Malaysia. Journal of Nusantara Studies, 8(1), 384-405. http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol8iss1pp384-405

The intergenerational transmission of educational attainment: A closer look at the (interrelated) roles of paternal involvement and genetic inheritance.

Numerous studies have documented a strong intergenerational transmission of educational attainment. In explaining this transmission, separate fields of research have studied separate mechanisms. To obtain a more complete understanding, the current study integrates insights from the fields of behavioural sciences and genetics and examines the extent to which paternal involvement and children's polygenic score (PGS) are unique underlying mechanisms, correlate with each other, and/or act as important confounders in the intergenerational transmission of fathers' educational attainment. To answer our research questions, we use rich data from The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (n = 4,579). Firstly, results from our mediation analyses showed a significant association between fathers' educational attainment and children's educational attainment (0.303). This association is for about 4 per cent accounted for by paternal involvement, whereas a much larger share, 21 per cent, is accounted for by children's education PGS. Secondly, our results showed that these genetic and behavioural factors are significantly correlated with each other (correlations between 0.06 and 0.09). Thirdly, we found support for genetic confounding, as adding children's education PGS to the model reduced the association between paternal involvement and children's educational attainment by 11 per cent. Fourthly, evidence for social confounding was almost negligible (the association between child's education PGS and educational attainment was only reduced by half of a per cent). Our findings highlight the importance of integrating insights and data from multiple disciplines in understanding the mechanisms underlying the intergenerational transmission of inequality, as our study reveals that behavioural and genetic influences overlap, correlate, and confound each other as mechanisms underlying this transmission.

Adult Child Schooling and Older Parents' Cognitive Outcomes in the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE): A Quasi-Experimental Study.

A growing body of research suggests that adult child educational attainment benefits older parents' cognitive outcomes via financial (e.g., direct monetary transfers) and nonfinancial (e.g., psychosocial) mechanisms. Quasi-experimental studies are needed to circumvent confounding bias. No such quasi-experimental studies have been completed in higher-income countries, where financial transfers from adult children to aging parents are rare. Using data on 8,159 adults aged ≥50 years in the Survey for Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (2004/2005), we leveraged changes in compulsory schooling laws as quasi-experiments. Each year of increased schooling among respondents' oldest children was associated with better verbal fluency (β = 0.07, 95% CI: 0.02, 0.12) scores; overall associations with verbal memory scores were null, with mixed and imprecise evidence of association in models stratified by parent gender. We also evaluated associations with psychosocial outcomes as potentially important mechanisms. Increased schooling among respondents' oldest children was associated with higher quality-of-life scores and fewer depressive symptoms. Our findings present modest albeit inconsistent evidence that increases in schooling may have an "upward" influence on older parents' cognitive performance even in settings where financial transfers from adult children to their parents are uncommon. Associations with parents' psychosocial outcomes were more robust.

The Impact of Centre‐based Childcare on Non‐cognitive Skills of Young Children

Early development of non‐cognitive skills has long‐lasting benefits for children's subsequent educational attainment and wages. Drawing on a rich, nationally representative longitudinal sample of young children in Ireland, we present new evidence on whether the use of centre‐based childcare (CBC) in infancy and early years promotes non‐cognitive skills by school entry. We focus on the type of non‐parental childcare used by mothers who are working when their child is 9 months old, comparing CBC with other forms of non‐parental care. We consider the impact of childcare type on three domains of socio‐emotional skills: externalizing, internalizing and prosocial behaviours. We find negative effects of CBC on both externalizing and prosocial behaviours. With a cumulative value‐added model, we estimate that CBC at age 3 worsens externalizing behaviour at age 5 by 0.11 standard deviations compared to other forms of non‐parental care, equivalent to 44% of the difference in externalizing behaviour between children with a mother with/without tertiary education. The effect of CBC on the externalizing dimension of socio‐emotional skills of children entering school is consistent across several specifications and robustness checks. Given planned expansion of CBC for those needing subsidized provision, we conclude that such measures could exacerbate socio‐emotional inequalities.

Increased adult child schooling and older parents’ health behaviors in Europe: A quasi-experimental study

There is growing evidence that adult child educational attainment is associated with older parents' physical health and longevity. Scholars have hypothesized that these associations may be driven by health-behavior pathways, whereby adult children with more education may share information about healthy lifestyles, role-model healthier behaviors, and/or have more economic resources to support leisure-based physical activity or the purchase of healthy foods for older parents. However, this relationship has not been comprehensively evaluated with methods capable of addressing the confounding bias expected for observational studies on this topic. We estimated the association between increased adult child schooling and older parents' health behaviors using data from the Survey for Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) (n = 8195). We leveraged changes to compulsory schooling laws that would have impacted respondents' adult children as quasi-experiments and estimated the association between increased schooling among oldest adult children and respondents' (parents') body mass index, obesity, physical inactivity, excessive drinking, and current smoking using two-stage least squares regression. Each year of increased schooling among oldest adult children was associated with a lower risk of current smoking (β: −0.029, 95% CI: −0.056, −0.003), physical inactivity (β: −0.034, 95% confidence interval [CI]: −0.077, 0.009), obesity (β: −0.038, 95% CI: −0.065, −0.011) and lower body mass index (β: −0.37, 95% CI: −0.73, −0.02). The direction of associations with excessive drinking varied by parent gender (β: −0.027, 95% CI: −0.046, −0.007 for mothers; β: 0.068, 95% CI: −0.011, 0.148 for fathers). Increases in adult child schooling may have upward influences on parents' late-life health behaviors, although there may be some differences by parent gender. Findings should be replicated across other global settings and studies should directly evaluate parent health behaviors as mediators of the relationship between increased adult child schooling and older parents’ longevity.

Impact of 2015 Earthquake on Educational Attainment of Children in Nepal

Background: Natural disaster has far-reaching consequences on the economic development of low-income economies due to the damage to physical and human capital and their poor resilience toward such damages. Nepal faces such disasters at frequent intervals without much effort to account for its consequences, particularly on human capital.&#x0D; Objective: This study assesses the short-term impact of Nepal's 2015 earthquake on children's educational attainment. The study also conducts heterogeneous analysis to analyze how the impact varies by gender. Secondary school completion is chosen as a measure of educational attainment.&#x0D; Method: The study utilizes second and third rounds of household survey data taken from the Nepal Risk and Vulnerability Survey (NHRVS) conducted by the World Bank. The study uses child fixed effects combined with the difference-in-difference method to account for issues relating to identifying the earthquake's impact on educational attainment.&#x0D; Results: The study finds that the cohorts exposed to the earthquake had an adverse effect on the probability of secondary school completion. A heterogeneous analysis by gender further reveals that the male children experienced a significant drop in their secondary school completion probability while female children essentially had no impact.&#x0D; Implication: The quality of human resources depends upon the quality of health and education in any country. The findings of this research draw the attention of the policymakers to the serious consequences that natural disaster has on human capital and help make informed policy decisions not only during the recovery process but also during the planning and policy formulation stage.&#x0D; Originality: This paper is original and has not been published anywhere else.

Child labour and its determinants in India

Child labour continues to be a major concern in India despite the implementation of various policies and programmes aimed at its eradication. This study investigates factors that influence child labour in India with a focus on regional differences. The data is drawn from the 2019–20 Periodic Labour Force Survey. Binary logistic regression is used to identify factors that influence child labour. The findings show that children with pre-primary and primary education are less likely to be in the workforce, whereas children with secondary and higher secondary education are more likely to be in the workforce. This reflects the higher rates of secondary school dropouts attempting to enter the labour force. Likewise, poor families are more likely to send their children to work. Similarly, children from economically and socially disadvantaged communities, and Muslim households are more likely to be sent to work. The findings suggest that increasing children's educational attainment and providing financial assistance to poor families could effectively eradicate child labour in India.

Parental criminality and children's educational attainment: A population-based extended family study

Parental criminality and children's educational attainment: A population-based extended family study

Parental criminality and children's educational attainment: A population-based extended family study

ObjectivesWe examine how parental criminality is associated with offspring education at different educational stages from primary to tertiary education and conduct separate analyses for non-violent and violent crimes and incarceration, and for paternal and maternal criminality. MethodsWe use Swedish total population register data of 513,886 children and their parents and estimate both population-level linear probability models and cousin fixed-effects models. ResultsParental criminality was negatively associated with all stages of offspring education. In population-level models accounting for parental education, the strongest associations were observed for parental violent crimes and incarceration with offspring secondary education completion (beta: −0.16 to −0.18). Cousin fixed-effects models suggested that family-level unobserved heterogeneity played a role in the associations as they were reduced when analyzing cousins differently exposed to parental criminality. ConclusionsParental criminality is negatively associated with offspring educational attainment, and the associations are in part due to shared familial factors. The association is different at different educational stages and for parental violent vs. non-violent crime.

School closures and educational attainment in Ethiopia: Can extra classes help children to catch up?

AbstractSchool closures impact children's attainment adversely, but understanding the effects of closures on children's attainment in lower‐income countries is still limited. Addressing this deficit, this study examines how past school closures have impacted children's educational attainment in Ethiopia. The study uses individual student‐level data from the Young Lives School Survey and standardised test scores in mathematics and language recorded at the start and end of the school year to model children's attainment. Multiple regression with propensity score matching is used to analyse how attainment over the school year is impacted by school closures for a matched sub‐sample of 4842 students. The effectiveness of additional classes to make up for lost learning is also evaluated. Past school closures have had a detrimental effect on attainment in mathematics, but not literacy. Extra classes, specifically those that families do not pay for, have helped children in the past to recuperate lost learning and could serve this function post‐Covid‐19. Inequalities in learning outcomes, measured by Gini coefficients in educational attainment, are widened by school closures. Applying these results to the extensive school closures under Covid‐19 furthers our understanding of the likely effects on academic attainment and can inform policy to mitigate the impact.