This study -- "Family scholarly culture and educational success: books and schooling in 27 nations" -- has lots of citations ( here 's a good example). This 20 year study of 27 nations (itself impressive) was authored by MDR Evans, Jonathan Kelley, Joanna Sikora and Donald J. Treiman, and it comes from a journal called Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 28 (2010) 171-197. We should be doing a lot more with this. The "sticky" fact for me: if a child (between the ages of 0-5) of any socioeconomic level and despite the education attainment of the parents has 500 books in the home, it's as good as having two parents with Master's degrees . How do people get 500 books in the home, especially if they don't have a lot of money? Can you spell "library?"