Mother's Home Time and the Production of Child Quality (original) (raw)

A bstract-This paper deals with the effect of mother's time spent out of the labor force, and presumably in the home, on the "production" of child quality, where child quality is measured by intelligence (IQ), level of schooling attained, and market earning power. The results indicate that mother's home time is most effective in producing (male) child quality for mothers who have attained relatively high levels of schooling. The results suggest that education programs which devote equal school resources to all (male) children do not necessarily provide equal educational opportunity and that the influence of family background on economic success is indirect, operating through home investments in children. DEMOGRAPHY, volume 14, number 2, May 1977 CD ... a-The sample size is reduced in the 2SLS regressions, because all boys who were still in school were eliminated: ::I from the 2SLS regressions. See discussion of schooling results in text. c 3 c:r Note: The values shown in parentheses are t-values.