Peer-reviewed article
The effect of maternal education on parenting and early childhood development: An instrumental variables approach.
Jorge A. Cuartas ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examined how maternal education affects children's early development in Uganda using data from 4,874 mother-child pairs from the 2016 Demographic and Health Survey. Using an instrumental variables approach to establish causation, researchers found that each additional year of maternal schooling improved children's development outcomes. The benefits operated through three mechanisms: mothers with more education engaged in more stimulating activities with children, were more likely to enrol children in early childhood education programmes, and used less harsh corporal punishment.
Key points
- Additional years of maternal schooling had positive causal effects on children's early development
- Maternal education increased engagement in stimulating activities with children
- Children of more educated mothers were more likely to attend early childhood education programmes
- Maternal education reduced the use of harsh corporal punishment
- Increased maternal stimulation, early childhood education attendance, and reduced harsh punishment partially explained the effects on child development
Limitations
The study uses observational data from a single survey round, so cannot establish long-term developmental trajectories or rule out unmeasured confounding factors. The instrumental variables approach addresses reverse causation but the external validity of findings to other contexts beyond Uganda requires further research.
Abstract
Maternal education is often considered an important determinant of children's early development. However, there is little empirical evidence on whether it is maternal education that contributes to better developmental outcomes or other ecological factors that relate to both education and children's development. This study used data on 4,874 mother-child (M age = 47.7 months) dyads from Uganda of the 2016 Demographic and Health Survey to assess the effects of maternal education on parenting and children's development. Taking advantage of a natural experiment with an instrumental variables approach, the study identified positive causal impacts of maternal schooling on children's development. Additional years of schooling also increased maternal engagement in stimulating activities, children's attendance to early childhood education programs, and reduced harsh corporal punishment. A mediation analysis suggested that increases in maternal stimulation and children's attendance to early childhood education programs and reductions in harsh corporal punishment partially explain the effects of maternal education on children's development. The positive impacts of education on parenting and child development indicate the need for more efforts to expand access to education in Uganda and other low- and- middle-income countries, including the abolishment of school fees for primary education. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Increased maternal education (measured as additional years of maternal schooling)
- Population
- 4,874 mother-child dyads from Uganda (children mean age 47.7 months)
Key finding
Maternal education had positive causal impacts on children's development