{"id":68147,"date":"2023-05-11T01:03:19","date_gmt":"2023-05-11T05:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=68147"},"modified":"2023-05-11T01:03:19","modified_gmt":"2023-05-11T05:03:19","slug":"mothers-education-has-a-powerful-role-shaping-their-childrens-futures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/mothers-education-has-a-powerful-role-shaping-their-childrens-futures\/","title":{"rendered":"Mothers\u2019 education has a powerful role shaping their children\u2019s futures"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Providing equitable quality education for all people is one of\u00a0the United Nations\u2019 2030 Sustainable Development Goals<\/a>. To meet this goal, international organizations and national and local governments have invested heavily in expanding education.<\/p>\n

In Canada, for example,\u00a0laws mandate<\/a>\u00a0that children stay in school until a certain age. Since the 1950s, policies related to post-secondary study\u00a0have resulted in<\/a>\u00a0the establishment of new post-secondary institutions and in increased post-secondary enrolment.<\/p>\n

In theory, expanding education makes more opportunities available. But does this mean there is now greater\u00a0intergenerational mobility<\/a>\u00a0as individuals rely less on their parents\u2019 background to get ahead in education?<\/p>\n

Our new research<\/a>\u00a0shows that while decades ago, if a father was well educated, his child would likely achieve educational success as well, but this is less the case today. Conversely, the educational status of mothers has greater influence over their child\u2019s educational status today than it did before.<\/p>\n

Gender revolution<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Research<\/a>\u00a0on intergenerational mobility often focuses on how children\u2019s achievements are associated with those of their fathers.<\/p>\n

Although mothers play a central role in child rearing, they have received far too little attention in mainstream understandings of intergenerational mobility.<\/p>\n

Against the backdrop of global education expansion and the gender revolution, women have made substantial gains in education. In the\u00a0United States<\/a>, for example, women overtook men in education, receiving 58 per cent, 61 per cent and 55 per cent of all bachelor\u2019s, master\u2019s, and doctorate degrees, respectively, in 2019\u20132020.<\/p>\n

Similarly,\u00a0in Canada<\/a>, women have outnumbered men in higher education, bagging nearly 60 per cent of bachelor\u2019s and master\u2019s degrees\u00a0as of 2020<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With women\u2019s rise in education, educated mothers pass on to their children not only their\u00a0cognitive ability and financial resources<\/a>, but also\u00a0aspirations, values and educational know-how<\/a>, all of which help bolster their children\u2019s educational status.<\/p>\n

Large global dataset<\/strong><\/h4>\n

To understand how mothers matter for intergenerational educational mobility around the world, we combined data from 545 existing large-scale surveys from 106 societies in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and North America.<\/p>\n

The dataset included 1.79 million individuals born between 1956 and 1990 who provided valid information on their own and both their mother\u2019s and father\u2019s education. As of 2022, the 106 societies we considered covered nearly 90 per cent of the world\u2019s population.<\/p>\n

Analyzing this global dataset<\/a>, we compared how mothers and fathers impact their children\u2019s educational status.<\/p>\n

Mothers taking the lead<\/strong><\/h4>\n

According to\u00a0classic modernization theory<\/a>, education expansion is expected to promote intergenerational mobility by equalizing educational opportunities.<\/p>\n

This \u201cequalizing\u201d expectation holds if we only looked at the association between fathers and their children. According to analyses of our global dataset, as education expanded over time, the father-child association in educational status has become weaker.<\/p>\n

However, contrary to the \u201cequalizing\u201d expectation, the mother-child association in educational status has grown much stronger as education expanded over time.<\/p>\n

In Europe, for example, women\u2019s educational status has become more closely associated with their mothers\u2019 than their fathers\u2019 education. A similar trend is observed across other world regions, where the importance of mothers\u2019 education has caught up with and even exceeded that of fathers in shaping their children\u2019s educational status.<\/p>\n

The value of mothers and mothering<\/strong><\/h4>\n

The lack of attention to mothers in intergenerational mobility reflects entrenched\u00a0gender biases<\/a>\u00a0that emphasize father-child ties. For example, research has traditionally associated \u201cfamily background\u201d with fathers\u2019 education, occupation, resources and social status.<\/p>\n

Indeed, despite a consensus regarding the importance of mothers as care providers, the crucial role mothers play in their children\u2019s social mobility is often overlooked in research, policymaking, and society at large.<\/p>\n

By revealing the increasing association between mothers\u2019 and their children\u2019s educational status around the world, our research shows the increasing contribution mothers make to intergenerational mobility. This new evidence demonstrates the powerful role mothers play in shaping educational and social equality and inequality, beyond seeing mothers\u2019 child-rearing role at home.<\/p>\n

As\u00a0single-mother families<\/a>\u00a0become more common, changes in family structure may further increase the importance of mothers in intergenerational mobility. Future research could also examine how intergenerational mobility works in families with same-sex, transgender or non-binary parents.<\/p>\n

Mother\u2019s Day is a timely reminder of not only the immense importance of mothers in our personal lives but also a need to see and recognize the value of mothers and what they do for us all in broader society.<\/p>\n

Author Bios:<\/strong> Yue Qian is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of British Columbia and Yang Hu is Professor, Department of Sociology at Lancaster University<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Providing equitable quality education for all people is one of\u00a0the United Nations\u2019 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. To meet this goal, international organizations and national and local governments have invested heavily in expanding education. In Canada, for example,\u00a0laws mandate\u00a0that children stay in school until a certain age. Since the 1950s, policies related to post-secondary study\u00a0have resulted […]\n… learn more→<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15645],"tags":[434425],"coauthors":[11733],"class_list":["post-68147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","tag-mothering"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMothers\u2019 education has a powerful role shaping their children\u2019s futures - World leading higher education information and services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/mothers-education-has-a-powerful-role-shaping-their-childrens-futures\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mothers\u2019 education has a powerful role shaping their children\u2019s futures - World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Providing equitable quality education for all people is one of\u00a0the United Nations\u2019 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. 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