Abstract
This paper examines the transmission of human capital from parents to children using variation in parental influence due to parental death, divorce, and the increasing specialization of parental roles in larger families. All three sources of variation yield strikingly similar patterns that show that the strong parent-child correlation in human capital is largely causal. In each case, the parent-child correlation in education is stronger with the parent who spends more time with the child and weaker with the parent who spends relatively less time parenting. These findings help us understand why educated parents spend more time with their children.
Original language | American English |
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Pages (from-to) | 569-610 |
Number of pages | 42 |
Journal | Journal of Labor Economics |
Volume | 38 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 1 Apr 2020 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:(May 2012), and the Israel Economic Association for helpful discussions. Financial support for this research has been gratefully received from the Israel Science Foundation and the Sapir Center. This paper is a significantly expanded version of a previous paper circulated under the title “Does Quality Time Produce Quality Children? Evidence on the Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital Using Parental Deaths.” Contact the corresponding author, Eric D. Gould, at eric.gould@huji.ac.il. Information concerning access to the data used in this paper is available as supplemental material online.
Funding Information:
We thank Saul Lach, Dan Hamermesh, Josh Angrist, Victor Lavy, Guy Stecklov, Omer Moav, Jim Heckman, David Autor, and seminar participants at Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Georgetown University, the 13th Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)/Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) European Summer Symposium in Labour Economics (ESSLE), the New Developments in Human Capital conference at Hebrew University. (May 2012), and the Israel Economic Association for helpful discussions. Financial support for this research has been gratefully received from the Israel Science Foundation and the Sapir Center. This paper is a significantly expanded version of a previous paper circulated under the title “Does Quality Time Produce Quality Children? Evidence on the Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital Using Parental Deaths.”.
Publisher Copyright:
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