Maternal education, parental investment and non-cognitive characteristics in rural China

This paper evaluates the parental response to non-cognitive variation across siblings in Gansu province, China, employing a household fixed effects specification. The non-cognitive indices are defined as the inverse of externalizing challenges (behavioral problems) and internalizing challenges (anxiety and withdrawal). The results suggest that there is significant heterogeneity with respect to maternal education; educated mothers compensate for differences between their children, investing more in a child exhibiting greater non-cognitive deficits, while less educated mothers reinforce these differences. Most importantly, there is evidence that these investments lead to the narrowing of non-cognitive deficits over time for children of more educated mothers.