The Impact of Maternal Education on Early Childhood Development

This study leverages exogenous variation from a secondary school stipend program for female students in rural Bangladesh to estimate the causal effect of maternal education on early childhood development. Using data from the 2019 Bangladesh Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, we find that the five years of stipend eligibility increase mothers' schooling by about one year. Instrumental variable estimates show that an additional year of maternal education improves early childhood development scores by 0.5 points on a scale of 0-10, with gains in overall developmental readiness (7.5 percentage points) and in the literacy–numeracy (7.7 percentage points) and physical (1.9 percentage points) domains. The results are robust across specifications. We also estimate the effects of maternal education on potential mechanisms, including children's nutrition, home learning environment, parenting practices, and use of early childhood education and care. The findings show that improvements in maternal education increase weight-for-age Z-scores, reduce stunting, improve the probability of having toys from shops, and increase the likelihood of an adult household member playing with the child. The positive effects of maternal education on children's developmental outcomes imply the importance of investment in improving educational attainment, particularly for females in low- and middle-income countries.