父母受教育水平与子女认知能力——来自中国教育追踪调查的经验证据

Parents’Educational Level and Children’s Cognitive Ability:Empirical Evidence from China Education Panel Survey

基于中国教育追踪调查数据,采用统计性描述和计量分析方法,研究了父母受教育水平对子女认知能力的影响及作用机制。结果表明,父母受教育水平对子女认知能力具有显著影响。父母最高受教育年限增加1年,子女认知能力提高0.019。其中,父母受教育水平对女孩认知能力的影响高于男孩;随着子女认知能力的提高,父母受教育水平对子女认知能力的影响趋于下降,表明认知能力较低的孩子受父母受教育水平的影响更大。进一步的机制分析表明,父母受教育水平通过影响教育期望和教育投入而作用于子女的认知能力,学业成绩要求、学历层次要求、子女自身学历期望和亲子陪伴都具有部分中介作用,中介效应占总效应比重分别为29.56%、44.52%、40.19%和2.59%。因此,政策上要对弱势家庭的孩子进行适度的倾斜;父母要构建家庭文化资本,适度提高子女的教育期望,并增加对子女的陪伴,担当起子女成长的“重要他人”角色。

Based on the data of China Education Panel Survey,the effects of parents’education level on their children’s cognitive ability and its mechanism were studied by using statistical description and econometric analysis method.The results show that the education level of parents has a significant impact on children’s cognitive ability.When the maximum education period of parents increased by 1 year,the cognitive ability of children increased by 0.019.Specifically,the influence of parents’education years on girl’s cognitive ability is higher than that of boy’s;with the improvement of children’s cognitive ability,the influence of parents’education level on children’s cognitive ability tends to decline,indicating that children with lower cognitive ability are more affected by parents’education level.Further mechanism analysis shows that parents’education level affects their children’s cognitive ability by influencing their educational expectations and investment.Academic performance requirements,academic level requirements,children’s own academic expectations and parent-child companionship all have partial mediating effects,and the proportion of mediating effects in the total effect is 29.56%,44.52%,40.19%,and 2.59%,respectively.Therefore,policies should be moderately inclined to the children of the disadvantaged families;parents should build family cultural capital,moderately improve their educational expectations on their children,increase their companionship with their children,and play the role of“important others”for their children’s growth.