Maternal higher education and children’s weight: evidence from the college enrolment expansion in China

This study utilizes four waves of data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) conducted between 2004 and 2011 to examine the causal impact of maternal higher education on childhood overweight. Exploiting China’s 1999 college enrolment expansion, we use the province-level potential expansion scale – based on predetermined quotas – as an instrumental variable for maternal years of education. Our findings reveal that maternal higher education significantly increases the probability of childhood overweight. A series of robustness checks confirm the stability of these results. Heterogeneity analysis indicates larger and more precisely estimated effects for boys, younger children, children in northern provinces, and younger maternal cohorts. Mechanism analysis is consistent with a reallocation of household time and resources towards children’s greater reliance on meals away from home, higher caloric intake, and more screen-based sedentary time, which may jointly contribute to a higher risk of overweight.