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Intergenerational Transmission of Education and Mediating Channels: Evidence from a Compulsory Schooling Reform in Germany
Author(s) -
Piopiunik Marc
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
the scandinavian journal of economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.725
H-Index - 64
eISSN - 1467-9442
pISSN - 0347-0520
DOI - 10.1111/sjoe.12063
Subject(s) - earnings , german , compulsory education , economics , demographic economics , value (mathematics) , west germany , transmission channel , labour economics , transmission (telecommunications) , economic growth , geography , accounting , archaeology , engineering , machine learning , computer science , electrical engineering , economic history
In this paper, I estimate the causal effect that an additional year of schooling for parents has on their children's education, by exploiting a compulsory schooling reform that was implemented in all West German states between 1946 and 1969. Although previous research indicates that the reform had no effect on earnings, I find that an additional year of schooling for women strongly affects the education of their sons. There is no effect for the other parent–child gender pairs. I investigate numerous channels that might mediate the positive effect of the education of mothers. Most importantly, I find that individuals with more schooling value their children's educational success as more important.