Maternal education is the level of formal schooling completed by a mother, usually classified by years of schooling or highest educational qualification attained [1]. In demographic, education, and public-health research, it is used as a core social indicator because it is strongly associated with household decision-making, health knowledge, care-seeking behavior, and children’s educational and developmental conditions [2][3]. Maternal education is typically operationalized through standardized categories (for example, no schooling, primary, secondary, and higher) to support comparison across populations and time [1]. As a concept, it refers specifically to mothers’ educational attainment, not to prenatal or parenting classes, and is commonly analyzed as a structural factor linked to intergenerational opportunity and wellbeing [2][3].
- maternal education
- maternal educational attainment
- intergenerational inequality
- child wellbeing
Education Discipline and Inequality • Education • Social Sciences • Social Sciences
References
- World Health Organization (WHO). WHO Recommendations on Maternal and Newborn Care for a Positive Postnatal Experience; WHO: Geneva, 2022. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240045989.
- A. H. Galt; L. J. Smith; Anthropological and economic perspectives on small family size on the Island of Pantelleria, Sicily. Popul. Stud. 1979, 33, 223-238, 10.1080/00324728.1979.10410439.
- Emmanuela Gakidou; Krycia Cowling; Rafael Lozano; Christopher Jl Murray; Increased educational attainment and its effect on child mortality in 175 countries between 1970 and 2009: a systematic analysis. Lancet 2010, 376, 959-974, 10.1016/s0140-6736(10)61257-3.