The Intergenerational Benefits of Kin Education: New Findings from Kenya

We know that maternal education benefits child health and well-being. In contexts where extended kin are important sources of social support, there may be additional benefits for children from increased education of their kin. We test the hypothesis that children benefit from having more educated kin using data from an innovative longitudinal project in two low-income communities in Nairobi, Kenya. Leveraging variation in kin members’ exposure to a national policy to lower the cost of secondary school education to account for selection, we find not only an improvement in education levels of kin but also significant intergenerational benefits for children in their families through improved household food security and faster language acquisition. However, we find no evidence that exposure to educated kin improves the nutritional status of these children. The implications of our findings are profound, as they demonstrate the contemporaneous benefits of educational expansion as well as the longer-term effects on subsequent generations, prompting us to rethink the role of education in shaping the well-being of children in low-income communities.