Does Mother Know Best? Parental Discrepancies in Assessing Child Functioning

41 Pages Posted: 3 Nov 2012

See all articles by Nabanita Datta Gupta

Nabanita Datta Gupta

Department of Economics and Business, Aarhus University; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Mette Lausten

Danish National Institute of Social Research (SFI)

Dario Pozzoli

Aarhus University - School of Business and Social Sciences

Abstract

We investigate the degree of correspondence between parents' reports on child behavioral and educational outcomes using the most recent available wave of a rich Danish longitudinal survey of children (the DALSC). All outcomes are measured at age 11 when the children are expected to be in fifth grade. Once discrepancies are detected, we analyze whether they are driven by noisy evaluations or by systematic bias, focusing on the role of parental characteristics and response heterogeneity. We then explicitly assess the relative importance of the mother's versus the father's assessments in explaining child academic performance and diagnosed mental health to investigate whether one parent is systematically a better informant of their child's outcomes than the other.

Keywords: child development, informant discrepancies, reporting bias

JEL Classification: I12, J13

Suggested Citation

Datta Gupta, Nabanita and Lausten, Mette and Pozzoli, Dario, Does Mother Know Best? Parental Discrepancies in Assessing Child Functioning. IZA Discussion Paper No. 6962, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2170650 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2170650

Nabanita Datta Gupta (Contact Author)

Department of Economics and Business, Aarhus University ( email )

Fuglesangs Allé 4
8210 Aarhus V
Denmark
+45 87165207 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://pure.au.dk/portal/da/ndg@econ.au.dk

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Mette Lausten

Danish National Institute of Social Research (SFI) ( email )

Herluf Trolles Gade 11
DK-1052
Copenhagen K, DK-1052
Denmark

Dario Pozzoli

Aarhus University - School of Business and Social Sciences ( email )

Nordre Ringgade 1
Aarhus C, DK-8000
Denmark

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
56
Abstract Views
616
Rank
662,188
PlumX Metrics