Do family resources matter? Educational attainment during transition in Poland*

We analyse the relationship between family background and children's educational attainment in the 1990s in Poland. If parental poverty affects children's educational prospects, the increase in social inequalities observed in the Polish transition process will be transmitted between generations. We apply an ordered probit model of educational attainment on longitudinal data from the Polish Labour Force Survey. Surprisingly, parents’ income and their labour market status have only a weak impact on children's education. Parents’ schooling, however, is strongly related to children's, and so are household structure, city size, and region of residence. We conclude that, if transmission of inequality takes place between generations, this seems to be primarily caused by the inheritance of human capital rather than by pure wealth effects.     

新时代儿童健康教育体系协同治理研究

儿童健康是国家健康的起点与基础,是提升劳动力素质与人口质量的关键环节,而开展儿童健康教育是实现儿童健康的必要路径。在新时代背景下,从健康资本、健康均等受益维度出发,构建与完善协同发展的儿童健康教育体系,加大政府、学校、家庭、社会融合协调的参与力度,充分发挥针对儿童的健康教育机制作用,对促进儿童的健康成长,实现健康国家战略具有重要的意义。本文在对我国儿童健康教育的发展现状进行全面概括的基础上,深入剖析我国儿童健康教育体系发展所面临的困境与挑战,并相应提出了我国儿童健康教育体系协同治理及发展的政策建议：(1)将大健康的儿童健康教育理念渗入到儿童健康教育长远规划中去;(2)建立促进多元主体共同协同治理的机制,建立以儿童为中心的儿童健康教育协同发展体系;(3)优化儿童健康教育的协同治理路径,完善一体化儿童健康教育体系构建的协同治理工具;(4)科学的识别机制,细分儿童健康教育服务需求;(5)完善儿童健康保障相关的法律规范,建立儿童健康教育体系的监督反馈评估机制;(6)提升儿童健康教育服务能力,尤其关注儿童心理及社会健康教育,建立健全儿童健康教育服务递送体系。     

政府科技支出如何作用于区域创新能力？——区域创新中政府与企业、市场关系的思考

考虑区域创新中政府、企业及市场间的作用,理论分析中国政府科技支出对区域创新能力的影响及作用机理,采用30个省区（因数据缺失,未包含西藏地区及港澳台地区）2008—2020年面板数据以系统GMM模型和门槛效应模型检验其影响效应及非线性关系。研究表明：政府科技支出对区域创新能力有显著的激励作用和正向滞后效应;政府科技支出对区域创新能力的作用效力受到企业创新绩效、市场化程度的单门槛效应影响,存在效力发挥的关键期。研究有助于理清区域创新中政府与企业、市场的关系,对政府资金干预区域创新的形式作出思考,提升政府科技支出效率,增强区域创新能力。     

The causal effects of parents’ schooling on children's schooling in urban China

Parental schooling is widely thought to improve child outcomes. But most studies on parental-child relations are associative, without control for estimation problems, such as unobserved intergenerationally-correlated endowments, if causality is of interest. The few exceptions are relatively recent studies that focus on high-income countries (HICs), with their much different contexts than the low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in which the vast majority of children globally are growing up. This paper estimates the causal (conditional on the assumptions for the model) relationships between parents’ schooling and their children's schooling in the most populous LMIC, using adult identical (monozygotic, MZ) twins data from urban China. Our ordinary least-squares estimates show that one-year increases in maternal and paternal schooling are associated, respectively, with 0.4 and 0.5 more years of children's schooling. However, if we control for genetic and other endowment effects by using within-MZ fixed effects, the results indicate that mothers''and fathers’ schooling have no significant effects on children's schooling. Our main results remain with various robustness checks, including controlling for measurement error. These results suggest that the positive associations between children's and parents’ schooling in standard cross-sectional estimates in this major LMIC are mainly due to the correlation between parents’ unobserved endowments and their schooling and not the effects of their schooling per se.     

Women's education and economic well-being

Evidence across regions in the world reveals patterns in school enrollment ratios and literacy that are divided along gender lines. In the developing world, apart from most countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, enrollment ratios of girls lag behind those for boys at all levels of education. Worldwide literacy rates for adult men far exceed those for women. While educational progress has been enjoyed by both sexes, these advances have failed to eradicate the gender gap. Education enhances labor market productivity and income growth for all, yet educating women has beneficial effects on social well-being not always measured by the market. Rising levels of education improve women's productivity in the home which in turn can increase family health, child survival, and the investment in children's human capital. The social benefits from women's education range from fostering economic growth to extending the average life expectancy in the population, to improving the functioning of political processes. This paper reviews recent empirical research that analyzes the benefits of women's education, describes the importance of women's education for country-level measures of economic development, and examines the implications of a gender gap in education for aggregate social well-being.     

Educational expenditure in urban China: income effects,family characteristics and the demand for domestic and overseas education

Analysing survey data from 32 selected cities across China in 2003, this article examines parents’ expenditure on their children's education from two aspects: factors affecting domestic education expenditure and factors affecting expenditure on overseas education. The main findings that emerge from this study are as follows. First, household income has significant effects on the magnitude of the domestic and overseas educational expenditures. Second, households where mothers have senior secondary school or college education, and fathers are working in professional occupations are likely to spend more on education for their children. Third, being in the highest income category, having a college-educated father, having a mother who is a cadre or middle professional and living in a coastal area significantly enhances the probabilities for the households sending their children overseas for education.     

Women's Intrahousehold Decision-Making Power and Their Health Status: Evidence from Rural Ethiopia

ABSTRACT

This study examines how various determinants of women's decision-making power affect their health status in rural Ethiopia. It identifies the determinants of women's decision-making power using a qualitative survey conducted over 2008–9, and it investigates their effects on women's health status using the Ethiopian Rural Household Survey panel dataset for the period 1994–2004. The study finds that women's health status is positively associated with their education, the number of brothers they have, whether they live in their birthplace, and whether their age is close to that of their husband. In contrast, women's health is negatively associated with whether they are in a marriage of their choice compared to an arranged marriage. The study concludes that multiple factors originating from context-specific gender norms affect women's decision-making power and have differential effects on women's health outcomes.     

Gender-Based Occupational Choices and Family Responsibilities: The Gender Wage Gap in Italy

This paper explores the relationship between the gender division of labor, occupational choices, and the gender wage gap in Italy. In Italy, cultural factors and low availability of formal childcare services define gender roles that are generally based on the male breadwinner model, in which childcare is almost completely entrusted to women. The analysis is carried out through an extension of the Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition and is based on data from the 2007 Italian National Institute for Workers’ Professional Development (ISFOL). The results are consistent with gender discrimination on wages and suggest that women’s occupational paths are often an outcome of limited choices, and that women’s unpaid domestic work negatively interferes with the energy women can put into paid work. These findings support the need to ensure gender equality in and out of the labor market, especially through deep changes in Italian social norms and through the development of formal childcare.     

Intergenerational transmission of education in China: New evidence from the Chinese Cultural Revolution

This paper estimates the effect of parental education on children's education by using instruments generated by the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and further explores the mechanisms of this causal relationship. Several important findings stand out from our empirical analyses. We find a larger intergenerational persistence in education for higher level in urban areas but for a lower level of education in rural areas. The main results from instrumental variable estimation show that the nurture effect is larger and more significant for fathers than for mothers. A deeper investigation of the mechanism behind this nurture effect informs us that a father's education passes on to his children's education partly through the income channel. Another notable finding is that even after controlling for fathers’ income, parental education still has a significantly positive effect on children's education through the nurture effect. This indicates that beyond the income channel, there may exist other channels such as better home environment, which deserve to be explored in future research.     

Intergenerational Transmission of Education and Mediating Channels: Evidence from a Compulsory Schooling Reform in Germany

In this paper, I estimate the causal effect that an additional year of schooling for parents has on their children's education, by exploiting a compulsory schooling reform that was implemented in all West German states between 1946 and 1969. Although previous research indicates that the reform had no effect on earnings, I find that an additional year of schooling for women strongly affects the education of their sons. There is no effect for the other parent–child gender pairs. I investigate numerous channels that might mediate the positive effect of the education of mothers. Most importantly, I find that individuals with more schooling value their children's educational success as more important.     

Analysis of School Enrollment in Ghana: A Sequential Approach

In this paper, we depart from the standard way of analyzing school enrollment by accounting explicitly for educational selectivity in order to examine the determinants of child school enrollment in Ghana. Using data from the Ghana Living Standard Survey round 6 (GLSS 6), we estimate a three‐step sequential logit model for the determinants of secondary school enrollment and its dependence on completing primary school. We find that family resources such as parental education, household income and the gender of the head of the household play a role in households' child schooling decisions. Educated parents are relatively more likely to enroll their children in primary school and keep them in school until they complete primary education. As well, we show that educated parents do not promote a gender‐biased investment in the schooling of children at the primary level. While household welfare does not influence children's entry into primary school importantly, their completion of primary school depends on household welfare. The study sheds more light on the pro‐male bias phenomenon regarding entry into primary school and primary school completion. Policies to promote the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 4 in Ghana must be grade sensitive.     

Catholic Economic Association Minutes of the Executive Council Meeting May 13, 1961

This paper applies thematic analysis to survey data obtained from a sample of AFDC recipients to investigate the complexities of single-parent decision-making in low-income households. A basic needs budget is developed to determine the adequacy of women's wages to provide for children's minimal material needs. In surveys, parents indicate their primary goal is the well-being of the children, determined by the adequacy of several types of resources, which we categorize into four groups: 1) material resources, 2) caring resources, 3) community resources, and 4) the macro-level environment. Using this framework, we develop a schematic model of single-parent decision-making, incorporating the assumption that children's level of need and well-being are determined not only by the cost and availability of material resources but also by psychological factors such as gender conflicts, neighborhood safety, as well as parents' time and social networks that provide caring labor.     

Women's Work Choices in Kenya: The Role of Social Institutions and Household Gender Attitudes

This study considers the factors that influence women's work behavior in Kenya. In particular, it examines whether gender attitudes and certain types of social institution influence the probability of employment or type of employment for women. Using data from the Demographic and Health Survey of 2008–9, it finds that religion and ethnicity are significant determinants of women's employment in Kenya. While personal experience of female genital mutilation is insignificant, spousal age and education differences, as well as marital status (which reflect attitudes both in women's natal and marital families), are significant determinants of women's employment choices.     

Raising productivity with pension premium

We argue that parents underinvest in growing their own children's capability in the absence of property rights over their future income, and that causes economic waste. No amount of collaborative choice among contemporary adults for public education could eliminate it because they face a resource constraint set by their predecessors. Such intergenerational dependence requires an intergenerational contract instead. It involves rewarding parents with a pension premium tied to their own children's taxable income paired with a matching subsidy to parental expenditure. We show how it fully internalizes the intergenerational externality, related to parenting, to eliminate economic waste and, thereby, to raise labor productivity and economic welfare. Our quantitative analysis of a baseline economy reveals significant welfare gains in economies with population ageing coupled with a low degree of parental care for children's future welfare and high returns to parental expenditure on children.     

Parents,migrant domestic workers and children's speaking of a second language: Evidence from Hong Kong

This paper explores the effects of different language home environments provided by English‐speaking and non‐English‐speaking migrant domestic workers (MDW) on Hong Kong children's ability to speak English. Results show that English‐speaking MDW in working‐mother households increase children's likelihood of speaking English by 12% if the mother in the household does not speak English but by 25% if the mother in the household is capable of speaking English. Non‐English‐speaking MDW, however, are found to have little such effects. Age and education are two qualities of English‐speaking MDW that are significantly associated with improvements in children's English‐speaking ability and their English school subject.     

Unlikely Pivotal States in Competitive Free Trade Agreement Diffusion: The Effect of Japan's Trans-Pacific Partnership Participation on Asia-Pacific Regional Integration

How can a state with dysfunctional trade politics spur the negotiation of major free trade agreements (FTAs)? Using the case of Japan's participation in the trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), we develop an analytical framework on FTA diffusion that takes into account multidimensional (economic, legal and political) competitive pressures, and the ability of states to act as pivots in triggering FTA cascades. We disaggregate the makeup of a pivotal state into two main components – capability and credibility – and underscore Japan's significant latent capabilities, but also its serious credibility shortcomings. The TPP's boost to Japan's credibility raised the possibility of significant economic, legal and political externalities for specific countries which responded by accelerating FTA initiatives that had long stalled: the trilateral China–Japan–Korea FTA, a 16-state East Asian FTA and the Japan–European Union trade negotiations. This study extends the theoretical frontier in policy diffusion studies by clarifying the combination of factors that allows some states, but not others, to activate the externalities behind the dissemination of defensive FTAs.     

Heterogeneity in Early Life Investments: A Longitudinal Analysis of Children's Time Use

We examine socioeconomic heterogeneity in children's time use using diary data from two waves of a nationally representative longitudinal cohort study in Ireland. Children from disadvantaged households spend significantly less time reading, doing homework, and engaging in physical exercise and sport than their counterparts, and more time engaging in unstructured play. Though most gaps are relatively small at age 9, they widen considerably by age 13. This pattern is similar for girls and boys. Parental education appears to be a more important factor in family investment decisions about children's time use than household income. Given the important role of extra-curricular activities in promoting cognitive and non-cognitive skill development, the systematic differences in children's time use we document in this paper may contribute to cumulative disadvantage and widening skill gaps through adolescence and into adulthood.     

创新政策工具组合、创新能力与创新绩效研究

基于2008-2018年我国内地30个省市面板数据，采用面板固定效应模型分析创新政策工具及其交互项对创新能力及创新绩效的影响。结果发现：①供给型和环境型创新政策均有利于促进技术创新能力提升和创新数量增长，需求型创新政策对创新能力及创新绩效的影响均不显著；②需求型、环境型和供给型创新政策两两交互项能够显著提高基础创新能力和技术创新能力，并显著增加创新数量，但对创新质量均呈显著负向影响；③需求型与供给型以及需求型与环境型创新政策组合功能呈协同互补性特征，供给型和环境型创新政策组合功能呈竞争性特征；④基础创新能力在创新政策工具对创新质量的影响中发挥完全中介作用，技术创新能力在创新政策工具对创新数量的影响中发挥完全中介作用。     

创新政策工具组合、创新能力与创新绩效研究

基于2008-2018年我国内地30个省市面板数据，采用面板固定效应模型分析创新政策工具及其交互项对创新能力及创新绩效的影响。结果发现：①供给型和环境型创新政策均有利于促进技术创新能力提升和创新数量增长，需求型创新政策对创新能力及创新绩效的影响均不显著；②需求型、环境型和供给型创新政策两两交互项能够显著提高基础创新能力和技术创新能力，并显著增加创新数量，但对创新质量均呈显著负向影响；③需求型与供给型以及需求型与环境型创新政策组合功能呈协同互补性特征，供给型和环境型创新政策组合功能呈竞争性特征；④基础创新能力在创新政策工具对创新质量的影响中发挥完全中介作用，技术创新能力在创新政策工具对创新数量的影响中发挥完全中介作用。     

SEN'S CAPABILITY APPROACH AND GENDER INEQUALITY: SELECTING RELEVANT CAPABILITIES

This paper investigates how Amartya Sen's capability approach can be applied to conceptualize and assess gender inequality in Western societies. I first argue against the endorsement of a definitive list of capabilities and instead defend a procedural approach to the selection of capabilities by proposing five criteria. This procedural account is then used to generate a list of capabilities for conceptualizing gender inequality in Western societies. A survey of empirical studies shows that women are worse off than men on some dimensions, better off on a few others, and similarly placed on yet others, while for some dimensions the evaluation is unclear. I then outline why, for group inequalities, inequalities in achieved functionings can be taken to reflect inequalities in capabilities, and how an overall evaluation could be arrived at by weighting the different capabilities.