Parental education and children ' s schooling outcomes : is the effect nature, nurture, or both? evidence from recomposed families in Rwanda, Vol. 1 of 1

About

Countries

Data & Research

Learning

News

Projects & Operations

Publications

Topics

Home > Data & Research > Document Search > Report Details

Parental education and children's schooling outcomes : is the effect nature, nurture, or both? evidence from recomposed families in Rwanda

Author:	de Walque, Damien;	Collection Title:	Policy, Research working papers ; no. WPS 3483
Country:	Rwanda;	Date Stored:	2005/02/14
Document Date:	2005/01/01	Document Type:	Policy Research Working Paper
Language:	English	Region:	Africa
Report Number:	WPS3483	SubTopics:	Children and Youth; Population & Development; Health Monitoring & Evaluation; Gender and Social Development; Youth and Governance; Street Children; Public Health Promotion
Volume No:	1 of 1

Summary: Educated parents tend to have educated children. But is intergenerational transmission of human capital more nature, more nurture, or both? The author uses household survey data from Rwanda that contains a large proportion of children living in households without their biological parents. The data allows him to separate genetic from environmental parental influences. The nonrandom placement of children is controlled by including the educational attainment of the absent biological parents and the type of relationship that links the children to their "adoptive" families. The results of the analysis suggest that the nurture component of the intergenerational transmission of human capital is important for both parents, contrary to recent evidence proposed by Behrman and Rosenzweig (2002) and Plug (2004). The author concludes that mothersﾒ education had no environmental impact on childrenﾒs schooling. Interestingly, mothersﾒ education matters more for girls, while fathersﾒ education is more important for boys. Finally, an important policy recommendation in the African context emerges from the analysis: the risk for orphans or abandoned children to lose ground in their schooling achievements is minimized if they are placed with relatives.


Official Documents Official, scanned versions of documents (may include signatures, etc.)
File Type		Description	File Size (mb)

	PDF 23 pages	Official version*	0.29
	Text	Text version**

* The official version is derived from scanning the final, paper copy of the document and is the official,
archived version including all signatures, charts, etc.

** The text version is the OCR text of the final scanned version and is not an accurate representation of the final text.
It is provided solely to benefit users with slow connectivity.

Permanent URL for this page: http://go.worldbank.org/8GD0RMZ6Y0