Relaxation of fertility restrictions, sibling composition and gender gap in education: Evidence from China’s 1.5-child policy

Fertility restrictions are generally believed to have increased children’s educational attainment. However, knowledge of the effects of relaxing fertility restrictions on the gender gap in education is lacking. Using China’s 1.5-child policy as an example, we explore how relaxing fertility restrictions affects the gender gap in education. We first construct a simple model to analyze how different family planning policies influence the gender gap in education through their effects on sibling composition. Using data from the 2010 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), we next empirically estimate the policy effects through a triple-difference (DDD) approach. We find that the 1.5-child policy significantly widened the gender gap in education, primarily through a relative decline in female educational attainment compared to males. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the eldest daughters, particularly those with younger brothers, experience a larger decline in educational attainment. We uncover two mechanisms limiting girls’ schooling: resource dilution through more siblings, and caregiving burdens as eldest sisters. We also find that supportive education policies can help narrow the gender gap in education by mitigating the negative impact on females’ educational attainment.