Maternal Education and Child Development: Insights From Nutritional Status in Kenya
利用肯尼亚六轮全国代表性数据，以1985年教育体制改革为工具变量，发现母亲每多受一年教育，孩子发育迟缓、体重不足和消瘦的概率分别降低约3.8、2.6和1.2个百分点，并探讨了生育、劳动参与等机制。
This paper examines the impacts of maternal education on her children's nutritional status in Kenya, utilizing six waves of nationally representative data from KDHS. To mitigate potential endogeneity issues and derive a causal relationship, we employ a change in the educational regime in 1985 as an instrument variable. The key findings can be summarized as follows. First, women under the new structure enhance their education by an average of 1.8 years. Second, an additional year of education attained by a mother is shown to have an impact on reducing the likelihood of her child experiencing stunting, underweight, and wasting by approximately 3.8, 2.6, and 1.2 percentage points, respectively. These findings withstand rigorous testing through a battery of robustness checks. Finally, to elucidate the underlying mechanisms behind these results, our study delves into various factors, encompassing women's fertility, female labor force engagement, women's information exposure, and their involvement in decision-making.