Pathology

Sociology

Danish

Pediatrics

Pedagogy

Population

Maternal health

Child health

Demographic economics

Causal model

Demography

Developmental psychology

Philosophy

Psychology

Economics

Compulsory education

Health services

Linguistics

Medicine

Environmental health

Journal of Health Economics

This study examines how maternal education shapes the life and health of their children. Causal effects are identified from a Danish school reform that increased minimum compulsory schooling from 7 to 9 years in 1972 and estimates are based on large administrative registers. We find that the reform as well as maternal education when instrumented by it, has significant, positive effects on mothers' age at first birth and maternal health. Nevertheless, maternal education has no systematic causal effects on child health, neither at birth, during childhood, or in adolescence. This null finding is robust to a wide range of model specifications.

Maternal education and child health: Causal evidence from Denmark