Search Results
Title: Motherhood Delay and the Human Capital of the Next Generation
Resulting in 1 citation.
| 1. |
Miller, Amalia Rebecca |
|
Motherhood Delay and the Human Capital of the Next Generation American Economic Review 99,2 (May 2009): 154–158. Also: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.99.2.154 Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79 Publisher: American Economic Association Keyword(s): Age at First Birth; Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Contraception; Fertility; Human Capital; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Variables, Instrumental Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. This paper uses biological fertility shocks as instrumental variables to estimate the causal effect of motherhood delay on the cognitive ability of first children. Maternal age at first birth represents a potential determinant of early human capital formation that reflects choices that respond to financial incentives, cultural norms, and policy environment. The key measures of cognitive ability are Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT) scores. Test scores have long been predictors of individual educational attainment and earnings, and their importance has only increased (Richard Murnane, John Willet, and Frank Levy 1995). At the national level, test performance in mathematics and science is strongly related to economic growth, and may matter more than years of completed schooling (Eric Hanushek and Dennis Kimko 2000). Using data on first-born children age 5 to 14 in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) Children survey, this paper finds delayed motherhood leads to significant increases in PIAT test scores. The relationship is robust to the inclusion of various controls for observable elements of maternal human capital, and the use of instrumental variables to address the potential endogeneity of motherhood timing. |
|
|
Bibliography Citation
Miller, Amalia Rebecca. "Motherhood Delay and the Human Capital of the Next Generation." American Economic Review 99,2 (May 2009): 154–158. A.
|