The role of parental investments for cognitive and noncognitive skill formation—Evidence for the first 11 years of life

Abstract

Die Dis cus si on Pape rs die nen einer mög lichst schnel len Ver brei tung von neue ren For schungs arbei ten des ZEW. Die Bei trä ge lie gen in allei ni ger Ver ant wor tung der Auto ren und stel len nicht not wen di ger wei se die Mei nung des ZEW dar.Dis cus si on Papers are inten ded to make results of ZEW research prompt ly avai la ble to other eco no mists in order to encou ra ge dis cus si on and sug gesti ons for revi si ons. The aut hors are sole ly respon si ble for the con tents which do not neces sa ri ly repre sent the opi ni on of the ZEW.Download this ZEW Discussion Paper from our ftp server:ftp://ftp.zew.de/pub/zew-docs/dp/dp10028.pdf This study examines the impact of parental investments on the development of cognitive, mental and emotional skills during childhood using data from a 20-year longitudinal study, the Mannheim Study of Children at Risk, starting at birth. We find empirical evidence for sensitive and critical periods of cognitive and mental skills within the first eleven years of life. Non-technical summaryThis implies that parental investments are most efficient for both types of skills directly after birth and less efficient at age eight and turn ineffective later on. We find that cognitive skills are most important for predicting school success, followed by mental skills, while emotional skills are less important.Our results indicate that initial conditions matter throughout childhood and that organic risk (e.g. low birth weight) is more detrimental for the development of cognitive skills, while psychosocial risk (e.g. early pregnancy) is more detrimental for the development of mental and emotional skills regarding the effect of parental investments. We also find differences between girls and boys considering the effect of parental investments. Boys profit more from parental investments in terms of cognitive skill development, while their mental skill development is more independent. Girls, on the other hand, benefit more from high investments with respect to their mental skill development. we examine the skill development for girls and boys separately, as well as for children who were born with either organic or psychosocial risk. We find a decreasing impact of parental investments on cognitive and mental skills, while emotional skills seem to be unaffected by parental investment throughout childhood. Thus, initial inequality persists during childhood. Since families are the main sources of education during the first years of life, our results have important implications for the quality of the parent-child relationship. Das Wichtigste in Kürze

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