title: Maternal Education, Early Child Care and the Reproduction of Advantage.
abstract: The social and human capital that educational attainment provides women enables them to better navigate their children's passages through school. In this study, we examine a key mechanism in this intergenerational process: mothers' selection of early child care. Analyses of the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development revealed that maternal education was positively associated with configurations of child-care characteristics (i.e., type, quality, quantity) most closely linked to children's school readiness. This association was not solely a function of mother's income or employment status, persisted despite controls for many observable confounds (e.g., maternal cognitive and psychological skills, paternal characteristics), and, according to post-hoc indices, was fairly robust in terms of unobservable confounds.
authors.affiliation: University of Texas at Austin.
authors.forename: Jennifer March
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Augustine
authors.forename: Shannon E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Cavanagh
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Crosnoe