Parenting Style as an Investment in Human Development

Deborah Cobb-Clark, Nicolas Salamanca and Anna Zhu ()
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Anna Zhu: Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne; ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course, http://melbourneinstitute.com/staff/azhu/default.html

Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series from Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne

Abstract: We propose a household production function approach to human development that explicitly considers the role of parenting style in child rearing. Specifically, we model parenting style as an investment in human development that depends not only on inputs of time and market goods, but also on attention, i.e. cognitive effort. The model links socioeconomic disadvantage to parenting style and human development through the constraints that disadvantage places on cognitive capacity. We find empirical support for our model. We demonstrate that parenting style is a construct that is distinct from standard goods- and timeintensive parental investments and that effective parenting styles are negatively correlated with socioeconomic disadvantage. Moreover, parenting style is an important determinant of young adults’ human capital net of other parental investments.

Keywords: Parenting style; cognitive load; locus of control; socioeconomic disadvantage; parental investments; human development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 I31 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 49pp
Date: 2016-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (38)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Parenting style as an investment in human development (2019)
Working Paper: Parenting Style as an Investment in Human Development (2016)
Working Paper: Parenting Style as an Investment in Human Development (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2016n03

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