News from Prosperity and Resilience: Sam Rawlings

Dr Sam Rawlings

Dr Sam Rawlings

Dr Sam Rawlings (SPEIR) has been investigating the impact of parental education on child health, exploiting a compulsory schooling law reform implemented in China in 1986 to identify effects. The key findings are that maternal education affects child health, but only for boys. Maternal education has sizable and significant effects on boys height-for-age (a measure of long-run health status), but effects are smaller and not statistically significant for girls. This is an important finding in China, where son preference exists and reflects the traditional patriarchal Confucian system in which girls and women are marginalised in society.