Report

Birth Order Matters: The Effect of Family Size and Birth Order on Educational Attainment

Author(s) / Creator(s)

Booth, Alison L.
Kee, Hiau Joo

Abstract / Description

We use unique retrospective family background data from the 2003 British Household Panel Survey to explore the degree to which family size and birth order affect a child's subsequent educational attainment. Theory suggests a trade off between child quantity and 'quality'. Family size might adversely affect the production of child quality within a family. A number of arguments also suggest that siblings are unlikely to receive equal shares of the resources devoted by parents to their children's education. We construct a composite 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 they are not, and that the shares are decreasing with birth order. Controlling for parental family income, parental age at birth and family level attributes, we find that children from larger families have lower levels of education and that there is in addition a separate negative birth order effect. In contrast to Black, Devereux and Kelvanes (2005), the family size effect does not vanish once we control for birth order. Our findings are robust to a number of specification checks.

Keyword(s)

Geschwisterreihe Familiengröße Erziehung Geschwisterreihe Familiengröße Erziehung family size birth order education

Persistent Identifier

Date of first publication

2005

Is part of series

Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit/ Institute for the Study of Labor: IZA Discussion Paper Series;1713

Citation

  • Author(s) / Creator(s)
    Booth, Alison L.
  • Author(s) / Creator(s)
    Kee, Hiau Joo
  • PsychArchives acquisition timestamp
    2022-11-17T11:01:17Z
  • Made available on
    2008-06-06
  • Made available on
    2015-12-01T10:32:12Z
  • Made available on
    2022-11-17T11:01:17Z
  • Date of first publication
    2005
  • Abstract / Description
    We use unique retrospective family background data from the 2003 British Household Panel Survey to explore the degree to which family size and birth order affect a child's subsequent educational attainment. Theory suggests a trade off between child quantity and 'quality'. Family size might adversely affect the production of child quality within a family. A number of arguments also suggest that siblings are unlikely to receive equal shares of the resources devoted by parents to their children's education. We construct a composite 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 they are not, and that the shares are decreasing with birth order. Controlling for parental family income, parental age at birth and family level attributes, we find that children from larger families have lower levels of education and that there is in addition a separate negative birth order effect. In contrast to Black, Devereux and Kelvanes (2005), the family size effect does not vanish once we control for birth order. Our findings are robust to a number of specification checks.
    en
  • Persistent Identifier
    https://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bsz:291-psydok-16621
  • Persistent Identifier
    https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11780/1107
  • Persistent Identifier
    https://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.8867
  • Language of content
    eng
  • Is part of
    IZA Discussion Paper Series No. 1713
  • Is part of series
    Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit/ Institute for the Study of Labor: IZA Discussion Paper Series;1713
  • Keyword(s)
    Geschwisterreihe
    de
  • Keyword(s)
    Familiengröße
    de
  • Keyword(s)
    Erziehung
    de
  • Keyword(s)
    Geschwisterreihe
    de
  • Keyword(s)
    Familiengröße
    de
  • Keyword(s)
    Erziehung
    de
  • Keyword(s)
    family size
    en
  • Keyword(s)
    birth order
    en
  • Keyword(s)
    education
    en
  • Dewey Decimal Classification number(s)
    150
  • Title
    Birth Order Matters: The Effect of Family Size and Birth Order on Educational Attainment
    en
  • DRO type
    report
  • Visible tag(s)
    PsyDok