Tenth International Conference on Health, Wellness & Society

Abstract

Family background is critical in the study of children’s well-being. While previous studies considered parents’ education as one of the control variables in their analysis, here, we control for a number of variables using propensity score matching to better understand the specific effect of parents’ education on children’s well-being. In doing so, we distinguish between father’s and mother’s education as well as identify various aspects of well-being given by health, educational attainment, and subjective well-being. While both parents’ education influence health and educational attainment, compared to a better-educated father, a mother with more education positively affects children’s subjective well-being. In particular, the effects differ for boys and girls as well as whether the children live in rural or urban areas. Lastly, we identify and examine two mechanisms (money and time spent) through which parent’s education affects children’s health, educational attainment and subjective well-being.