TY - JOUR
T1 - Mother's education and the intergenerational transmission of human capital
T2 - Evidence from college openings
AU - Currie, Janet
AU - Moretti, Enrico
N1 - Funding Information:
* Claudia Goldin, Donald Kenkel, Thomas Kane, Lance Lochner, Justin Mc-Crary, and seminar participants at University of California Los Angeles, University of California at Berkeley, London School of Economics, IZA, Heidelberg University, National Bureau of Economic Research Summer Institute, Columbia University, City University of New York, University of California, Davis, University of Washington at Seattle, the University of Colorado at Denver, University of California, San Diego, Princeton and Yale Universities, three anonymous referees, and the editors provided very helpful comments. We also thank Michael Greenstone and Kenneth Chay for sharing their Vital Statistics data and David Card for sharing his data on colleges that closed. Rebecca Acosta, Benjamin Bolitzer, Stephanie Riegg, and Anna-Maria Bjornsdotter provided excellent research assistance. We thank NIH (Currie) and the UCLA Senate (Moretti) for financial support.
PY - 2003/11
Y1 - 2003/11
N2 - We examine the effect of maternal education on birth outcomes using Vital Statistics Natality data for 1970 to 1999. We also assess the importance of four channels through which maternal education may improve birth outcomes: use of prenatal care, smoking, marriage, and fertility. In an effort to account for the endogeneity of educational attainment, we use data about the availability of colleges in the woman's county in her seventeenth year as an instrument for maternal education. We find that higher maternal education improves infant health, as measured by birth weight and gestational age. It also increases the probability that a new mother is married, reduces parity, increases use of prenatal care, and reduces smoking, suggesting that these may be important pathways for the ultimate effect on health. Our results add to the growing body of literature which suggests that estimates of the returns to education which focus only on increases in wages understate the total return.
AB - We examine the effect of maternal education on birth outcomes using Vital Statistics Natality data for 1970 to 1999. We also assess the importance of four channels through which maternal education may improve birth outcomes: use of prenatal care, smoking, marriage, and fertility. In an effort to account for the endogeneity of educational attainment, we use data about the availability of colleges in the woman's county in her seventeenth year as an instrument for maternal education. We find that higher maternal education improves infant health, as measured by birth weight and gestational age. It also increases the probability that a new mother is married, reduces parity, increases use of prenatal care, and reduces smoking, suggesting that these may be important pathways for the ultimate effect on health. Our results add to the growing body of literature which suggests that estimates of the returns to education which focus only on increases in wages understate the total return.
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U2 - 10.1162/003355303322552856
DO - 10.1162/003355303322552856
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:0344585499
SN - 0033-5533
VL - 118
SP - 1495
EP - 1532
JO - Quarterly Journal of Economics
JF - Quarterly Journal of Economics
IS - 4
ER -