Effect of Parental Education on Child’s Schooling : A Case Study on Malawi’s Primary and Secondary School Children

A majority of prior studies have substantiated the intergenerational effects of maternal education on children, but study on the impact of paternal education on children’s educational achievements is limited. The purpose of this study is to examine the role of paternal education in children’s schooling based on the student’s gender, parents’ gender, and education level. The panel probit model is applied to the analysis based on World Bank’s Integrated Household Panel Survey. The estimated results illustrate that there is a positive correlation between the parents’ education level and children’s literacy. Specifically, a higher likelihood of children’s literacy is associated with paternal education than maternal education; fathers who had a university degree had more impact on their children’s literacy. There is a high probability of paternal education transmission to the daughter than the son. Parental education has a significant impact on children in the short and medium terms. The implication of these findings is that paternal education can be used as a suitable proxy for measuring children’s educational achievements in Malawi.