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Parental Educational Investment and Children's Academic Risk: Estimates of the Impact of Sibship Size and Birth Order from Exogenous Variations in Fertility

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Author Info
Dalton Conley
Rebecca Glauber
Abstract

The stylized fact that individuals who come from families with more children are disadvantaged in the schooling process has been one of the most robust effects in human capital and stratification research over the last few decades. For example, Featherman and Hauser (1978: 242-243) estimate that each additional brother or sister costs respondents on the order of a fifth of a year of schooling. However, more recent analyses suggest that the detrimental effects of sibship size on children's educational achievement might be spurious. We extend these recent analyses of spuriousness versus causality using a different method and a different set of outcome measures. We suggest an instrumental variable approach to estimate the effect of sibship size on children's private school attendance and on their likelihood of being held back in school. Specifically, we deploy the sex-mix instrument used by Angrist and Evans (1998). Analyses of educational data from the 1990 PUMS five percent sample reveal that children from larger families are less likely to attend private school and are more likely to be held back in school. Our estimates are smaller than traditional OLS estimates, but are nevertheless greater than zero. Most interesting is the fact that the effect of sibship size is uniformly strongest for latter-born children and zero for first born children.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 11302.

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Date of creation: May 2005
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11302

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I0 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - General

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  1. Baez, Javier E., 2008. "Does More Mean Better? Sibling Sex Composition and the Link between Family Size and Children’s Quality," IZA Discussion Papers 3472, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  2. Wendt, Minh & Kinsey, Jean, 2009. "Childhood Overweight and School Outcomes," 2009 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, 2009, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 49347, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association. [Downloadable!]
  3. Booth, Alison L & Kee, Hiau Joo, 2006. "Birth Order Matters: The Effect of Family Size and Birth Order on Educational Attainment," CEPR Discussion Papers 5453, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Ponczek, Vladimir & Portela, André, 2007. "The Causal Effect of Family Size on Child Labor and Education," Textos para discussão 162, Escola de Economia de São Paulo, Getulio Vargas Foundation (Brazil). [Downloadable!]
  5. Angrist, Joshua & Lavy, Victor & Schlosser, Analia, 2006. "New Evidence on the Causal Link between the Quantity and Quality of Children," CEPR Discussion Papers 5668, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Jung Hur & Yohanes E. Riyanto, 2007. "Organizational Structure and Product Market Competition," Departmental Working Papers wp0705, National University of Singapore, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  7. Kırdar, Murat G. & Dayıoğlu, Meltem & Tansel, Aysıt, 2007. "Impact Of Sibship Size, Birth Order, And Sex Composition On School Enrollment In Urban Turkey," MPRA Paper 2755, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  8. Monique de Haan, 2005. "Birth Order, Family Size and Educational Attainment," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 05-116/3, Tinbergen Institute. [Downloadable!]
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