IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2404.12988.html

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

Author

Listed:
  • 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.

Suggested Citation

  • 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
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.12988
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    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. Hongbin Li & Junsen Zhang & Yi Zhu, 2008. "The quantity-Quality trade-Off of children In a developing country: Identification using chinese twins," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 45(1), pages 223-243, February.
    3. 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).
    4. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ea Hoppe Blaabæk & Mads Meier Jæger & Joseph Molitoris, 2020. "Family Size and Educational Attainment: Cousins, Contexts, and Compensation," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 36(3), pages 575-600, July.
    2. Peng, Fei & Anwar, Sajid & Kang, Lili, 2022. "Number of siblings, access to treated water and returns to education in China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 526-538.
    3. Shuang Chen, 2020. "Parental Investment After the Birth of a Sibling: The Effect of Family Size in Low-Fertility China," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(6), pages 2085-2111, December.
    4. Azam Mehtabul & Hang Saing Chan, 2018. "Is There Really a Trade-Off? Family Size and Investment in Child Quality in India," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 18(1), pages 1-12, January.
    5. Menghan Zhao & Yang Zhang, 2019. "Parental childcare support, sibship status and mothers’ second-child plans in urban China," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 41(47), pages 1315-1346.
    6. Damian Clarke, 2018. "Children And Their Parents: A Review Of Fertility And Causality," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(2), pages 518-540, April.
    7. Letícia Marteleto & Laetícia Souza, 2012. "The Changing Impact of Family Size on Adolescents’ Schooling: Assessing the Exogenous Variation in Fertility Using Twins in Brazil," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 49(4), pages 1453-1477, November.
    8. Parfait Eloundou-Enyegue & Sarah Giroux, 2012. "Fertility Transitions and Schooling: From Micro- to Macro-Level Associations," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 49(4), pages 1407-1432, November.
    9. Hatton, Timothy J. & Sparrow, Robert & Suryadarma, Daniel & van der Eng, Pierre, 2018. "Fertility and the health of children in Indonesia," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 67-78.
    10. Hai-Anh H. Dang & F. Halsey Rogers, 2016. "The Decision to Invest in Child Quality over Quantity: Household Size and Household Investment in Education in Vietnam," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 30(1), pages 104-142.
    11. Liu, Xiangbo & Sun, Zhiying & Tang, Daisheng & Chu, Shuai, 2025. "Relaxation of fertility restrictions, sibling composition and gender gap in education: Evidence from China’s 1.5-child policy," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    12. Dasgupta, Kabir & Solomon, Keisha T., 2018. "Family size effects on childhood obesity: Evidence on the quantity-quality trade-off using the NLSY," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 42-55.
    13. Benjamin G. Gibbs & Joseph Workman & Douglas B. Downey, 2016. "The (Conditional) Resource Dilution Model: State- and Community-Level Modifications," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 53(3), pages 723-748, June.
    14. Vu, Linh Hoang & Tran, Tuyen Quang, 2021. "Sibship composition, birth order and education: Evidence from Vietnam," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    15. Øystein Kravdal, 2014. "The Estimation of Fertility Effects on Happiness: Even More Difficult than Usually Acknowledged," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 30(3), pages 263-290, August.
    16. Gitanjali Sen & Mitul Surana & Rakesh Basant, 2023. "To What Extent Does the Fertility Rate Explain the Education Gap?," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 42(3), pages 1-31, June.
    17. Sahawal Alidou & Marijke Verpoorten, 2019. "Family size and schooling in sub-Saharan Africa: testing the quantity-quality trade-off," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 32(4), pages 1353-1399, October.
    18. Clark, Gregory & Cummins, Neil, 2016. "The Child Quality-Quantity Tradeoff, England, 1780-1880: A Fundamental Component of the Economic Theory of Growth is Missing," CEPR Discussion Papers 11232, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    19. Fujii, Tomoki & Shonchoy, Abu S. & Xu, Sijia, 2018. "Impact of Electrification on Children’s Nutritional Status in Rural Bangladesh," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 315-330.
    20. repec:pri:rpdevs:vogl_family_size is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Kathleen J. Brown & Roos Haer & Gudrun Østby, 2023. "Local Food Price Volatility and School Dropout in Sub‐Saharan Africa," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 49(3), pages 443-468, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2404.12988. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.