Parental childcare and children's educational attainment: evidence from China

This paper examines the determinants of child educational attainment. In addition to those examined in previous studies, it is found that maternal childcare is another important determinant of child educational attainment. The results are robust after controlling for endogeneity. The IV estimates show that once childcare time is controlled for, child health does not have an effect on school enrolment age. This finding suggests that omitting the childcare time may have biased the estimated effect of child health on school enrolment in previous studies.