Doren Catherine, Grodsky Eric
University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Sociol Educ. 2016 Oct;89(4):321-342. doi: 10.1177/0038040716667994. Epub 2016 Sep 27.
Parental income and wealth contribute to children's success but are at least partly endogenous to parents' cognitive and noncognitive skills. We estimate the degree to which mothers' skills measured in early adulthood confound the relationship between their economic resources and their children's postsecondary education outcomes. Analyses of NLSY79 suggest that maternal cognitive and noncognitive skills attenuate half of parental income's association with child baccalaureate college attendance, a fifth of its association with elite college attendance, and a quarter of its association with bachelor's degree completion. Maternal skills likewise attenuate a third of parental wealth's association with children's baccalaureate college attendance, half of its association with elite college attendance, and a fifth of its association with bachelor's degree completion. Observational studies of the relationship between parents' economic resources and children's postsecondary attainments that fail to account for parental skills risk seriously overstating the benefits of parental income and wealth.
父母的收入和财富有助于孩子取得成功，但它们至少在一定程度上取决于父母的认知和非认知技能。我们估计了成年早期所衡量的母亲技能在多大程度上混淆了她们的经济资源与子女高等教育成果之间的关系。对全国青年纵向调查1979年数据的分析表明，母亲的认知和非认知技能削弱了父母收入与子女获得学士学位后上大学之间关联的一半、与进入精英大学之间关联的五分之一以及与获得学士学位之间关联的四分之一。母亲的技能同样削弱了父母财富与子女获得学士学位后上大学之间关联的三分之一、与进入精英大学之间关联的一半以及与获得学士学位之间关联的五分之一。对父母经济资源与子女高等教育成就之间关系的观察性研究，如果没有考虑到父母的技能，就有可能严重高估父母收入和财富带来的好处。
