Volume 29, Number 4 (Fall) 1994
Hill, M. Anne, and June O'Neill. 1994. "Family Endowments and the Achievement of Young Children with Special Reference to the Underclass." Journal of Human Resources 29(4):1064-1100.
This paper investigates the factors underlying cognitive achievement among young children using a Becker-Tomes model of intergenerational transmission adapted to incorporate transmission of a family's cultural orientation toward achievement. The model relates a child's achievement to parental income and cognitive skills as well as to grandparent's income and education.
Using data on PPVT scores for children born to women in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we find large and significant positive effects of the mother's AFQT score, her schooling, and the grandparent's schooling. We also find that increases in the mother's hours at work bear significant negative effects on her child's achievement. This effect is only partially compensated for by higher money income among these young children. A mother's welfare dependence is associated with a reduction in her child's PPVT score, an effect that is not explained by poverty persistence. Evidence that welfare participation signals transmission of low achievement orientation while variables such as maternal education signal positive values is reinforced through the use of a mediating variable measuring the time a mother spends reading to her children.
M. Anne Hill is a professor of economics at Queens College, CUNY, and senior research associate at the Center for the Study of Business and Government, Baruch College, CUNY. June O'Neill is a professor of economics and finance at Baruch College, CUNY, and the director of the Center for the Study of Business and Government, Baruch College, CUNY. The research on which this paper is based was supported by Grant No. HD26106-02 from the National Institute of Child health and Human Development. June O'Neill acknowledges support from a John M. Olin Faculty Fellowship. The authors are grateful to Dave M. O'Neill for extensive comments and benefitted from the comments of Linda Edwards, Sara McLanahan, Robert Plotnick, and John Strauss. Chun Yong Yang and Wen Hui Li provided excellent research assistance. The data can be obtained beginning June 1995 through June 1998 from June O'Neill, Center for the Study of Business and Government, Baruch College, Box 348A, New York, NY 10010.
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