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How Gender and Birth Order Affect Educational attainment Inequality within-Families: Evidence from Benin

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  • Christelle Zozoungbo

Abstract

This paper examines how gender, birth order, and innate ability shape within-household disparities in children's educational attainment in developing countries. Using data from Benin, I find that in households with non-educated parents, gender and birth order drive over two-thirds of the average educational attainment disparities among adult children, while their influence decreases to one-third in households with college-educated parents. Furthermore, average inequality, measured by the range of children's educational attainment is twice as high among non-educated parents compared to college-educated parents. I propose and estimate a structural model of educational attainment choices within-family. Using the model, I show that the absence of gender and birth order effects does not lead to a significant reduction in the average within-family disparities in children's educational attainment. Additionally, in theory, ensuring that every child has at least one year of education lowers average within-family educational inequality. Yet, even in this scenario, daughters tend to receive less education than sons, and practical efforts to achieve universal entry are less effective than the theoretical model.

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  • Christelle Zozoungbo, 2024. "How Gender and Birth Order Affect Educational attainment Inequality within-Families: Evidence from Benin," Papers 2404.12988, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2024.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2404.12988
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    1. Vida Maralani, 2008. "The changing relationship between family size and educational attainment over the course of socioeconomic development: Evidence from Indonesia," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 45(3), pages 693-717, August.
    2. Weng, Qian & Gao, Xia & He, Haoran & Li, Shi, 2019. "Family size, birth order and educational attainment: Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    3. Stephanie R. Psaki & Katharine J. McCarthy & Barbara S. Mensch, 2018. "Measuring Gender Equality in Education: Lessons from Trends in 43 Countries," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 44(1), pages 117-142, March.
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