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Birth order matters: the effect of family size and birth order on educational attainment.
- Source :
- Journal of Population Economics; Apr2009, Vol. 22 Issue 2, p367-397, 31p, 14 Charts
- Publication Year :
- 2009
-
Abstract
- Using the British Household Panel Survey, we investigate if family size and birth order affect children’s subsequent educational attainment. Theory suggests a trade-off between child quantity and “quality” and that siblings are unlikely to receive equal shares of parental resources devoted to children’s education. We construct a new birth order index that effectively purges family size from birth order and use this to test if siblings are assigned equal shares in the family’s educational resources. We find that the shares are decreasing with birth order. Ceteris paribus, children from larger families have less education, and the family size effect does not vanish when we control for birth order. These findings are robust to numerous specification checks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- HOUSEHOLD surveys
FAMILIES
CHILDREN
FAMILY size
BIRTH intervals
EDUCATION
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 09331433
- Volume :
- 22
- Issue :
- 2
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- Journal of Population Economics
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 36480121
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-007-0181-4