Higher investments, better performance? Do parental inputs really help children win the educational competition

• In Event: 21020 - Section on Sociology of Education Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 22: The Role of Family, Health, and Parental Engagement in Education and Well-Being

Abstract

Numerous studies have confirmed the positive relationship between parental various inputs and children’s academic achievement. From the perspective of human capital theory, parental resources are beneficial to children’s skills and knowledge; more resources, higher test scores. However, on the one hand, there are different types of parental resources and whether they all contribute to children’s test scores are underexplored. What’s more, higher scores may not mean higher probability of enrollment when education is seen as a positional good. In this study, the relationship between various parental economic/non-economic inputs and children’s different academic outcomes are examined. Using data from China Family Panel Studies, the regression results show that certain type of parental puts are positively associated with children’s math and literacy scores. However, the results from logit analysis shows that only parental non-economic investment significantly increase the probability of children being enrolled to next educational stage.

Author

• Xiao Yuan, the Chinese University of Hong Kong