Parental Education and Child Health: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Taiwan

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Chou, Shin-Yi; Liu, Jin-Tan; Grossman, Michael; Joyce, Ted
• 署名单位: Lehigh University; National Bureau of Economic Research; National Taiwan University; City University of New York (CUNY) System; City University of New York (CUNY) System; Baruch College (CUNY)
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.2.1.33
• 发表日期: 2010
• 页码: 33-61
• 关键词: high-school; smoking; draft; tests

摘要

In 1968, the Taiwanese government extended compulsory education from 6 to 9 years and opened over 150 new junior high schools at a differential rate among regions. Within each region, we exploit variations across cohorts in new junior high school openings to construct an instrument for schooling, and employ it to estimate the causal effects of mother's or father's schooling on infant birth outcomes in the years 1978-1999. Parents' schooling does cause favorable infant health outcomes. The increase in schooling associated with the reform saved almost 1 infant life in 1,000 live births.