IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ssb/dispap/802.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The effect of childhood family size on fertility in adulthood. New evidence form IV estimation

Author

Listed:

Abstract

While fertility is positively correlated across generations, the causal effect of children's experience with larger sibships on their own fertility in adulthood is poorly understood. Using the sex composition of the two first-born children as an instrumental variable, we estimate the effect of sibship size on adult fertility. Estimations are done on high-quality data from Norwegian administrative registers. Our study sample is all first- or second-borns during the 1960s in Norwegian families with at least two children (approximately 110 000 men and 104 000 women). An additional sibling has a positive effect on male fertility, both by shifting some men into fatherhood and increasing family size. For women, a negative quantum effect emerges, driven by a preference for two rather than three children among women from three-child families. Studying mediators we show that mothers of girls shift relatively less time from market to family work when an additional child is born. We speculate that this scarcity in parents' time makes girls aware of the strains of life in large families, leading them to limit their own number of children in adulthood.

Suggested Citation

  • Sara Cools & Rannveig Kaldager Hart, 2015. "The effect of childhood family size on fertility in adulthood. New evidence form IV estimation," Discussion Papers 802, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    • Handle: RePEc:ssb:dispap:802
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ssb.no/en/forskning/discussion-papers/_attachment/219923
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter, Noemi & Lundborg, Petter & Webbink, Dinand, 2015. "The Effect of a Sibling's Gender on Earnings, Education and Family Formation," IZA Discussion Papers 9128, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Sandra E. Black & Paul J. Devereux & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2010. "Small Family, Smart Family? Family Size and the IQ Scores of Young Men," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 45(1).
    3. Yoram Ben-Porath & Finis Welch, 1976. "Do Sex Preferences Really Matter?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 90(2), pages 285-307.
    4. William Axinn & Arland Thornton, 1996. "The influence of parents’ marital dissolutions on children’s attitudes toward family formation," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 33(1), pages 66-81, February.
    5. Sandra E. Black & Paul J. Devereux & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2005. "The More the Merrier? The Effect of Family Size and Birth Order on Children's Education," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(2), pages 669-700.
    6. Gunnar Andersson & Karsten Hank & Marit Rønsen & Andres Vikat, 2006. "Gendering family composition: Sex preferences for children and childbearing behavior in the Nordic countries," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 43(2), pages 255-267, May.
    7. Angrist, Joshua D & Evans, William N, 1998. "Children and Their Parents' Labor Supply: Evidence from Exogenous Variation in Family Size," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 450-477, June.
    8. Arnstein Aassve & Elena Meroni & Chiara Pronzato, 2012. "Grandparenting and Childbearing in the Extended Family," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 28(4), pages 499-518, November.
    9. Sarah Hayford, 2009. "The evolution of fertility expectations over the life course," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 46(4), pages 765-783, November.
    10. Mogstad, Magne & Wiswall, Matthew, 2009. "How Much Should We Trust Linear Instrumental Variables Estimators? An Application to Family Size and Children's Education," IZA Discussion Papers 4562, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Laura Bernardi & Andreas Klärner, 2014. "Social networks and fertility," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 30(22), pages 641-670.
    12. Mike Murphy, 2006. "The Role of Assortative Mating on Population Growth in Contemporary Developed Societies," Contributions to Economics, in: Francesco C. Billari & Thomas Fent & Alexia Prskawetz & Jürgen Scheffran (ed.), Agent-Based Computational Modelling, pages 61-84, Springer.
    13. Michaela Kreyenfeld, 2004. "Fertility Decisions in the FRG and GDR: An Analysis with Data from the German Fertility and Family Survey," Demographic Research Special Collections, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 3(11), pages 275-318.
    14. de Haan, Monique, 2010. "Birth order, family size and educational attainment," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 576-588, August.
    15. Torkild Lyngstad & Alexia Prskawetz, 2010. "Do siblings’ fertility decisions influence each other?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 47(4), pages 923-934, November.
    16. Joshua Angrist & Victor Lavy & Analia Schlosser, 2010. "Multiple Experiments for the Causal Link between the Quantity and Quality of Children," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(4), pages 773-824, October.
    17. Anne Gauthier, 2007. "The impact of family policies on fertility in industrialized countries: a review of the literature," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 26(3), pages 323-346, June.
    18. Imbens, Guido W & Angrist, Joshua D, 1994. "Identification and Estimation of Local Average Treatment Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(2), pages 467-475, March.
    19. Michaela R. Kreyenfeld, 2004. "Fertility decisions in the FRG and GDR," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2004-008, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sara Cools & Simen Markussen & Marte Strøm, 2017. "Children and Careers: How Family Size Affects Parents’ Labor Market Outcomes in the Long Run," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(5), pages 1773-1793, October.

    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. Sara Cools & Rannveig Kaldager Hart, 2017. "The Effect of Childhood Family Size on Fertility in Adulthood: New Evidence From IV Estimation," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(1), pages 23-44, February.
    2. 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.
    3. Kruk, Kai Eberhard & Reinhold, Steffen, 2014. "The effect of children on depression in old age," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 1-11.
    4. Adriana D. Kugler & Santosh Kumar, 2017. "Preference for Boys, Family Size, and Educational Attainment in India," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(3), pages 835-859, June.
    5. Briole, Simon & Le Forner, Hélène & Lepinteur, Anthony, 2020. "Children’s socio-emotional skills: Is there a quantity–quality trade-off?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    6. Oliveira, Jaqueline, 2016. "The value of children: Inter-generational support, fertility, and human capital," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 1-16.
    7. Anne Ardila Brenøe, 2018. "Origins of gender norms: sibling gender composition and women's choice of occupation and partner," ECON - Working Papers 294, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    8. 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.
    9. Chen, Qihui, 2021. "Population policy, family size and child malnutrition in Vietnam – Testing the trade-off between child quantity and quality from a child nutrition perspective," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    10. Bonsang, Eric & Pronkina, Elizaveta, 2023. "Family size and vaccination among older individuals: The case of COVID-19 vaccine," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    11. Mogstad, M. & Wiswall, M., 2012. "Instrumental variables estimation with partially missing instruments," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 114(2), pages 186-189.
    12. Beatrice Baaba Tawiah, 2023. "The Effect of Children on Health," Working Papers Dissertations 103, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.
    13. Christina J. Diaz & Jeremy E. Fiel, 2021. "When Size Matters: IV Estimates of Sibship Size on Educational Attainment in the U.S," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 40(6), pages 1195-1220, December.
    14. 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.
    15. Rannveig Hart & Sara Cools, 2019. "Identifying interaction effects using random fertility shocks," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 40(10), pages 261-278.
    16. Janna Bergsvik & Sara Cools & Rannveig K. Hart, 2023. "Explaining Residential Clustering of Large Families," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 39(1), pages 1-28, December.
    17. Rannveig Kaldager Hart & Sara Cools, 2017. "Identifying fertility contagion using random fertility shocks," Discussion Papers 861, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    18. Schultz, T. Paul, 2010. "Population and Health Policies," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4785-4881, Elsevier.
    19. Menta, Giorgia & Lepinteur, Anthony, 2021. "Boys don’t cry (or do the dishes): Family size and the housework gender gap," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 186(C), pages 164-188.
    20. Helena Holmlund & Helmut Rainer & Thomas Siedler, 2013. "Meet the Parents? Family Size and the Geographic Proximity Between Adult Children and Older Mothers in Sweden," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(3), pages 903-931, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fertility; Intergenerational Transmission; Instrumental Variables;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C26 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Instrumental Variables (IV) Estimation
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ssb:dispap:802. 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: L Maasø (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ssbgvno.html .

    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.