The effect of parental education on child health: Quasi‐experimental evidence from a reduction in the length of primary schooling in Egypt

Ali, Fatma Romeh M.; Elsayed, Mahmoud

doi:10.1002/hec.3622

Cited by 19 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Given the small number of studies and the criteria listed above, we were only able to conduct meta‐regressions for five of the 17 infant and child health outcomes in seven papers . Consistent with that observed in the forest plots, meta‐regression results indicate a statistically significant mean effect size of increased grade attainment only on child mortality measured dichotomously: −0.0206 ( P = 0.018).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 68%

“…Of the final set of 16 papers, only one study investigating maternal morbidity, and no papers on maternal mortality or malaria, met our inclusion criteria. Of the papers that examined child health, seven investigated the effects of education on both infant and child mortality [35,36,[49][50][51][52][53], one measured child but not infant mortality separately [54] and one measured infant but not child mortality [55]. Of the nine papers that investigated infant mortality [35, 36, 49-53, 55, 56], five also examined neonatal mortality [35,36,51,52,56].…”

Section: Study Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Of the nine papers that investigated infant mortality [35, 36, 49-53, 55, 56], five also examined neonatal mortality [35,36,51,52,56]. Of the papers that measured child growth faltering, eight investigated child stunting [51,[55][56][57][58][59][60][61] and, of these, five also [55,58,59].…”

Section: Study Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evidence for causal links between education and maternal and child health: systematic review

Mensch

Chuang

Melnikas

et al. 2019

Tropical Med Int Health

103

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Objective Numerous studies have documented an inverse association between years of schooling attained, particularly by women, and reduced maternal, infant and child mortality. However, if factors affecting educational attainment — many of which are unobservable, e.g. motivation and genetic endowment — also affect the likelihood of engaging in behaviours that enhance health, then assumed effects of schooling will be inflated in analyses that do not address this endogeneity. This systematic review assesses evidence for a causal link between education and maternal and child health in low and middle‐income countries. Methods Eligible studies controlled for observable and unobservable factors affecting both education and health. Reported effects were converted into partial correlations. When possible, we also conducted meta‐analyses to estimate mean effects by outcome. Results Of 4952 papers identified, 16 met the inclusion criteria. The 15 child health papers examined neonatal, infant and child mortality, stunting and wasting. Significant effects of education on infant and child health were observed for 30 of 33 models that did not account for endogeneity. In contrast, only 18 of 46 effects were significant in models that addressed endogeneity. Notably, for only one outcome —child mortality measured dichotomously —was the effect of maternal educational attainment significant in a meta‐analysis. The one maternal morbidity paper found significant effects for the two preventable outcomes considered. Conclusion While we find evidence for a causal link between education and health, effects are weaker in models that address endogeneity compared to naïve models that do not account for unobservable factors affecting both education and health. Advances in women's educational outcomes have undoubtedly played a role in improving health in many settings; however, the effect is not as strong as some researchers and advocates have claimed.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 68%

Section: Study Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Evidence for causal links between education and maternal and child health: systematic review

Mensch

Chuang

Melnikas

et al. 2019

Tropical Med Int Health

103

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…For youth educational outcomes, parental education is one of the most significant resources that shape youth educational (Mercy and Steelman, 1982;Davis-Kean, 2005) and health (Wills et al, 1995;Appleton-Arnaud, 2008;Ali and Elsayed, 2018) outcomes. In line with MDRs framework, however, researchers have documented smaller health gains from parental educational attainment for AA than non-Hispanic White adolescents (Assari, 2018b,c;Assari and Hani, 2018;Assari et al, 2018a,b,e).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Place-Based Diminished Returns of Parental Educational Attainment on School Performance of Non-Hispanic White Youth

et al. 2020

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Background: Youth educational outcomes are a function of a wide range of factors including parental education level. This effect, however, is shown to be smaller for African American, Hispanic, and Asian American youth, a pattern called Marginalizationrelated Diminished Returns (MDRs). It is, however, unknown if it is race/ethnicity or other conditions associated with race/ethnicity (e.g., poor neighborhood quality) which reduces the marginal returns of parental education for youth. Aim: To explore whether MDRs are only due to race/ethnicity or if they also remain for non-Hispanic Whites in poor neighborhoods, we compared the association between parental education level and adolescents' school performance based on neighborhood quality in a nationally representative sample of non-Hispanic Whites in the United States. Methods: This cross-sectional study used wave 1 of the Add Health study, an ongoing nationally representative cohort, 1994-2019. Participants included 849 non-Hispanic White adolescents between the ages of 12 and 21 years and their parents. The independent variable was parental education level, which was treated as a continuous measure. Age, grade, gender, and parental marital status were the covariates. The dependent variable was school performance (sum of school grades in Math, English, History, and Science). Linear regression models were used for data analysis. Results: Overall, worse neighborhood quality was associated with worse school performance. Parental education level, however, was not directly associated with youth school performance. We found a statistically significant interaction between parental education level and neighborhood quality suggesting that the strength of the association between parental education and youth school performance weakens as neighborhood quality declines.

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“…In Egypt and Peru, for instance, low under-five survival was observed in areas with high levels of educational attainment (upper left corner in Fig 1), in particular for girls under five (see S4 Fig for results disaggregated by a child's sex in Egypt and Peru) [34]. Although this finding appears counterintuitive, a growing literature suggests mixed child health returns to additional years of maternal schooling [35][36][37][38]. A recent systematic review examined evidence for a causal link between maternal education and child health and found that parental schooling may play a more muted role in parents' decisions about whether and how much to invest in their children's health than previously suggested [39].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Nationally and regionally representative analysis of 1.65 million children aged under 5 years using a child-based human development index: A multi-country cross-sectional study

2020

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BackgroundEducation and health are both constituents of human capital that enable people to earn higher wages and enhance people's capabilities. Human capabilities may lead to fulfilling lives by enabling people to achieve a valuable combination of human functionings-i.e., what people are able to do or be as a result of their capabilities. A better understanding of how these different human capabilities are produced together could point to opportunities to help jointly reduce the wide disparities in health and education across populations. Methods and findingsWe use nationally and regionally representative individual-level data from Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) for 55 low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) to examine patterns in human capabilities at the national and regional levels, between 2000 and 2017 (N = 1,657,194 children under age 5). We graphically analyze human capabilities, separately for each country, and propose a novel child-based Human Development Index (HDI) based on under-five survival, maternal educational attainment, and measures of a child's household wealth. We normalize the range of each component using data on the minimum and maximum values across countries (for national comparisons) or first-level administrative units within countries (for subnational comparisons). The scores that can be generated by the child-based HDI range from 0 to 1.We find considerable heterogeneity in child health across countries as well as within countries. At the national level, the child-based HDI ranged from 0.140 in Niger (with mean across first-level administrative units = 0.277 and standard deviation [SD] 0.114) to 0.755 in Albania (with mean across first-level administrative units = 0.603 and SD 0.089). There are improvements over time overall between the 2000s and 2010s, although this is not the case PLOS MEDICINEPLOS Medicine | https://doi.under-five survival improved over time at most levels of maternal education and wealth. In contrast, in the Philippines, we found relatively few changes in under-five survival across the development spectrum and over time. In these countries, the persistent location of geographical areas of poor child health across both the development spectrum and time may indicate within-country poverty traps. Limitations of our study include its descriptive nature, lack of information beyond firstand second-level administrative units, and limited generalizability beyond the countries analyzed. ConclusionsThis study maps patterns and trends in human capabilities and is among the first, to our knowledge, to introduce a child-based HDI at the national and subnational level. Areas of chronic deprivation may indicate within-country poverty traps and require alternative policy approaches to improving child health in low-resource settings. Author summaryWhy was this study done?• Education and health are aspects of human capital that may have important economic benefits for individuals and households. These human capabilities reflect a person's freedom to choose different ways of li...

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The effect of parental education on child health: Quasi‐experimental evidence from a reduction in the length of primary schooling in Egypt

Cited by 19 publications

References 33 publications

Evidence for causal links between education and maternal and child health: systematic review

Evidence for causal links between education and maternal and child health: systematic review

Place-Based Diminished Returns of Parental Educational Attainment on School Performance of Non-Hispanic White Youth

Nationally and regionally representative analysis of 1.65 million children aged under 5 years using a child-based human development index: A multi-country cross-sectional study

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