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Money and success - Sibling and birth-order effects on positional concerns

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  • Lampi, Elina
  • Nordblom, Katarina

Abstract

Survey data is used to investigate how birth order and presence/absence of siblings affect positional concerns in terms of success at work and of earned income. We find that people's positional concerns in terms of work-related issues generally are weak, but there are some differences in this regard: we find that only-children are the most concerned with relative position. Moreover, even if birth order itself has very small effects, the positional concern increases with the number of siblings among those who grew up together with siblings. Furthermore, people whose parents often compared them with their siblings generally have stronger positional concerns. We also find that younger respondents are far more concerned with relative position than older in all studied situations.

Suggested Citation

  • Lampi, Elina & Nordblom, Katarina, 2010. "Money and success - Sibling and birth-order effects on positional concerns," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 131-142, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:31:y:2010:i:1:p:131-142
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    Cited by:

    1. Lampi, Elina & Nordblom, Katarina, 2010. "Money and success - Sibling and birth-order effects on positional concerns," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 131-142, February.
    2. Honghui Li & Masato Hiwatari, 2024. "Unveiling the direct and indirect effects of sibling size on happiness: evidence from adults in early and mid-adulthood in China," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-12, December.
    3. Alpaslan Akay & Gökhan Karabulut & Peter Martinsson, 2013. "The effect of religiosity and religious festivals on positional concerns -- an experimental investigation of Ramadan," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(27), pages 3914-3921, September.
    4. Kuba, Radim & Flegr, Jaroslav & Havlíček, Jan, 2018. "The effect of birth order on the probability of university enrolment," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 61-72.
    5. Warren, John Robert & Knies, Laurie & Haas, Steven & Hernandez, Elaine M., 2012. "The impact of childhood sickness on adult socioeconomic outcomes: Evidence from late 19th century America," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(8), pages 1531-1538.
    6. Eiji Yamamura, 2015. "Effects of Siblings and Birth Order on Income Redistribution Preferences: Evidence Based on Japanese General Social Survey," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 121(2), pages 589-606, April.
    7. Kirsten Häger & Bastian Oud & Daniel Schunk, 2012. "Egalitarian Envy: Cross-cultural Variation in the Development of Envy in Children," Jena Economics Research Papers 2012-059, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    8. Adam Ayaita & Kerstin Pull, 2022. "Positional preferences and narcissism: evidence from ‘money burning’ dictator games," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(3), pages 267-271, February.
    9. Carlsson, Fredrik & Lampi, Elina & Martinsson, Peter & Tu, Qin & Yang, Xiaojun, 2018. "Long-run effects of family policies: An experimental study of the Chinese one-child policy," Working Papers in Economics 732, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    10. Bogaerts, Tess & Pandelaere, Mario, 2013. "Less is more: Why some domains are more positional than others," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 225-236.
    11. Yamamura, Eiji, 2012. "Effects of siblings and birth order on income redistribution preferences," MPRA Paper 38658, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Birth order Positional concern Only-child Relative income Siblings;

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

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