Maternal education is associated with early child outcomes. However, the several mechanisms that may explain this relationship remain underexplored. Using data from 1,097 children aged 12–15 months in Chile, we estimate the maternal education gap across child cognitive and language outcomes. Following a bioecological perspective, we explore potential pathways by which maternal education might influence child development, such as child characteristics, the quantity and quality of mother–child interactions, and the availability of home stimulation. We found an average maternal education gap between children with mothers with the lowest and the highest educational levels of 0.36, 0.31, and 0.25 standard deviation in child cognition, expressive language, and receptive language, respectively. The mediational analysis showed that maternal stress and depression and the quality of the home environment mediated the relation between maternal education and child language and cognitive development.

母亲教育与早期儿童的结果有关。然而，可能解释这种关系的几种机制仍未得到充分探索。我们使用智利 1,097 名 12-15 个月大的儿童的数据，估计了儿童认知和语言结果方面的孕产妇教育差距。从生物生态学的角度，我们探讨了孕产妇教育可能影响儿童发展的潜在途径，例如儿童特征、母婴互动的数量和质量，以及家庭刺激的可用性。我们发现，母亲教育水平最低和最高的孩子在儿童认知、表达性语言和接受性语言方面的平均母亲教育差距分别为 0.36、0.31 和 0.25 个标准差。