This paper explores the effect of maternal education on child health and the channels in which education
operates by exploiting a change in the compulsory schooling law (CSL) in Turkey. In order to account for the
endogeneity of education, variation in the exposure to the CSL across cohorts induced by the timing of the
policy is used as an instrumental variable. The results indicate that mother’s primary school completion
improves infant health, as measured by very low birth weight, and child health, as measured by height-for-age
and weight-for-age z-scores, even after controlling for many potential confounding factors. This paper also
demonstrates that mother’s primary school completion leads to earlier preventive care initiation and reduces
smoking