Children Get Educational Benefits from Having a Parent at Home

A Norwegian cash-incentive program to encourage parents to stay at home with their toddlers had a long-term beneficial effect on older children’s educational attainment, according to a team led by Eric Bettinger of Stanford. By 10th grade, children whose mothers didn’t work outside the home because of the program had grade-point averages that were up to 1.2 points higher than would have been expected otherwise (in this study, the average GPA was 4.1 on a 6-point scale). Parents who stayed at home may have been more available to help their children with their schoolwork, the researchers say.