IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/eurpop/v36y2020i3d10.1007_s10680-019-09543-y.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Family Size and Educational Attainment: Cousins, Contexts, and Compensation

Author

Listed:
  • Ea Hoppe Blaabæk

    (University of Copenhagen)

  • Mads Meier Jæger

    (University of Copenhagen)

  • Joseph Molitoris

    (Lund University)

Abstract

This paper analyses the effect of family size on children’s educational attainment using a new research design that combines fixed effects and instrumental variable (IV) approaches. We use (a) data on first cousins who belong to the same extended family but to different nuclear families to control for extended family fixed effects and (b) variation in in-married spouses’ number of siblings (a proxy for their fecundity and preferences) as an IV for variation in family size within extended families. We find that family size has a negative causal effect on educational attainment and, moreover, that the negative effect is smaller in families with stronger social ties. Our results suggest that contextual characteristics outside the nuclear family moderate the negative effect of family size on children’s educational attainment.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:eurpop:v:36:y:2020:i:3:d:10.1007_s10680-019-09543-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s10680-019-09543-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10680-019-09543-y
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10680-019-09543-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rosenzweig, Mark R. & Paul Schultz, T., 1987. "Fertility and investments in human capital : Estimates of the consequence of imperfect fertility control in Malaysia," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1-2), pages 163-184.
    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. Becker, Gary S & Tomes, Nigel, 1976. "Child Endowments and the Quantity and Quality of Children," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(4), pages 143-162, August.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Gary S. Becker & H. Gregg Lewis, 1974. "Interaction between Quantity and Quality of Children," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of the Family: Marriage, Children, and Human Capital, pages 81-90, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Otis Duncan & Ronald Freedman & J. Coble & Doris Slesinger, 1965. "Marital Fertility and Size of Family of Orientation," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 2(1), pages 508-515, March.
    8. 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.
    9. John Sandberg & Patrick Rafail, 2014. "Family Size, Cognitive Outcomes, and Familial Interaction in Stable, Two-Parent Families: United States, 1997–2002," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(5), pages 1895-1931, October.
    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. Jungmin Lee, 2008. "Sibling size and investment in children’s education: an asian instrument," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 21(4), pages 855-875, October.
    12. Emla Fitzsimons & Bansi Malde, 2014. "Empirically probing the quantity–quality model," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 27(1), pages 33-68, January.
    13. 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.
    14. Silles, Mary A., 2010. "The implications of family size and birth order for test scores and behavioral development," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 795-803, October.
    15. Vladimir Ponczek & Andre Portela Souza, 2012. "New Evidence of the Causal Effect of Family Size on Child Quality in a Developing Country," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 47(1), pages 64-106.
    16. Dalton Conley & Rebecca Glauber, 2006. "Parental Educational Investment and Children’s Academic Risk: Estimates of the Impact of Sibship Size and Birth Order from Exogenous Variation in Fertility," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 41(4).
    17. Altonji, Joseph G & Hayashi, Fumio & Kotlikoff, Laurence J, 1992. "Is the Extended Family Altruistically Linked? Direct Tests Using Micro Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(5), pages 1177-1198, December.
    18. 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.
    19. Judith Blake, 1981. "Family size and the quality of children," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 18(4), pages 421-442, November.
    20. Durlauf, Steven N, 1996. "A Theory of Persistent Income Inequality," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 75-93, March.
    21. Steven J. Haider & Kathleen McGarry, 2018. "Parental Investments in College and Later Cash Transfers," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(5), pages 1705-1725, October.
    22. Joshua D. Angrist & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2009. "Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 8769.
    23. Douglas Staiger & James H. Stock, 1997. "Instrumental Variables Regression with Weak Instruments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(3), pages 557-586, May.
    24. 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.
    25. Lena Lindahl, 2008. "Do birth order and family size matter for intergenerational income mobility? Evidence from Sweden," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(17), pages 2239-2257.
    26. Joseph Rodgers & Hans-Peter Kohler & Kirsten Kyvik & Kaare Christensen, 2001. "Behavior genetic modeling of human fertility: findings from a contemporary danish twin study," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 38(1), pages 29-42, February.
    27. 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.
    28. Laura M. ARGYS & Susan L. AVERETT, 2019. "The Effect of Family Size on Education: New Evidence from China's One-Child Policy," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 85(1), pages 21-42, March.
    29. 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.
    30. William Axinn & Marin Clarkberg & Arland Thornton, 1994. "Family influences on family size preferences," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 31(1), pages 65-79, February.
    31. Lisa Keister, 2003. "Sharing the wealth: The effect of siblings on adults’ wealth ownership," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 40(3), pages 521-542, August.
    32. Baez, Javier E., 2008. "Does More Mean Better? Sibling Sex Composition and the Link between Family Size and Children’s Quality," IZA Discussion Papers 3472, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    33. Elizabeth Thomson & Elaine McDonald & Larry Bumpass, 1990. "Fertility desires and fertility: Hers, his, and theirs," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 27(4), pages 579-588, November.
    34. Shelley Clark, 2000. "Son preference and sex composition of children: Evidence from india," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 37(1), pages 95-108, February.
    35. Jesper Bagger & Javier A Birchenall & Hani Mansour & Sergio Urzúa, 2021. "Education, Birth Order and Family Size [Family size and children’s education in Vietnam]," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(633), pages 33-69.
    36. Johan Dahlberg, 2013. "Family influence in fertility: A longitudinal analysis of sibling correlations in first birth risk and completed fertility among Swedish men and women," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 29(9), pages 233-246.
    37. Meltem Dayioğlu & Murat G. Kirdar & Aysit Tansel, 2009. "Impact of Sibship Size, Birth Order and Sex Composition on School Enrolment in Urban Turkey," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 71(3), pages 399-426, June.
    38. Marc Frenette, 2011. "Why do larger families reduce parental investments in child quality, but not child quality per se?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 9(4), pages 523-537, December.
    39. Elizabeth Thomson, 1997. "Couple childbearing desires, intentions, and births," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 34(3), pages 343-354, August.
    40. Changhui Kang, 2011. "Family Size and Educational Investments in Children: Evidence from Private Tutoring Expenditures in South Korea," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 73(1), pages 59-78, February.
    41. Giulia Ferrari & Gianpiero Dalla Zuanna, 2010. "Siblings and human capital: A comparison between Italy and France," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 23(21), pages 587-614.
    42. Bhalotra, Sonia & Clarke, Damian, 2016. "The twin instrument," ISER Working Paper Series 2016-17, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    43. de Haan, Monique, 2010. "Birth order, family size and educational attainment," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 576-588, August.
    44. Elizabeth Thomson & Jan Hoem, 1998. "Couple childbearing plans and births in Sweden," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 35(3), pages 315-322, August.
    45. Matthijs Kalmijn & Herman G van de Werfhorst, 2016. "Sibship Size and Gendered Resource Dilution in Different Societal Contexts," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(8), pages 1-16, August.
    46. Nancy Qian, 2009. "Quantity-Quality and the One Child Policy:The Only-Child Disadvantage in School Enrollment in Rural China," NBER Working Papers 14973, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    47. 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.
    48. 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.
    49. Gary S. Becker, 1960. "An Economic Analysis of Fertility," NBER Chapters, in: Demographic and Economic Change in Developed Countries, pages 209-240, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Xiumin Hong & Mei Wang, 2023. "The Challenge of Chinese Children’s Emotion Regulation: Child Number, Parental Emotion Regulation, and Its Relationship with Reactions to Children’s Negative Emotions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-12, February.
    2. Patrick Präg & Seongsoo Choi & Christiaan Monden, 2020. "The sibsize revolution in an international context: Declining social disparities in the number of siblings in 26 countries," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 43(17), pages 461-500.

    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. 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.
    2. 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).
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. Kaat Van Hoyweghen & Janne Bemelmans & Hendrik Feyaerts & Goedele Van den Broeck & Miet Maertens, 2023. "Small Family, Happy Family? Fertility Preferences and the Quantity–Quality Trade-Off in Sub-Saharan Africa," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 42(6), pages 1-35, December.
    8. 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).
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. Nooshin Rashti Mohammad & Ali Taieb Nia & Sajjad Barkhordari, 2024. "The Casual Effect of Family Size on the Human Capital in Iranian Society," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 15(1), pages 4056-4071, March.
    12. Emla Fitzsimons & Bansi Malde, 2014. "Empirically probing the quantity–quality model," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 27(1), pages 33-68, January.
    13. 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.
    14. 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.
    15. Daniel Mont & Cuong Viet Nguyen & Anh Tran, 2020. "The Effect of Sibship Size on Children’s Outcomes: Evidence from Vietnam," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 13(1), pages 147-173, February.
    16. 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.
    17. Seongsoo Choi & Riley Taiji & Manting Chen & Christiaan Monden, 2020. "Cohort Trends in the Association Between Sibship Size and Educational Attainment in 26 Low-Fertility Countries," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(3), pages 1035-1062, June.
    18. Fernihough, Alan, 2017. "Less is More? The child quantity-quality trade-off in early 20th century England and Wales," QUCEH Working Paper Series 2017-07, Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History.
    19. Chen, Qihui, 2017. "Relaxed population policy, family size and parental investments in children’s education in rural Northwestern China," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 39-50.
    20. Nicoletta Balbo & Francesco C. Billari & Melinda Mills, 2013. "Fertility in Advanced Societies: A Review of Research," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 29(1), pages 1-38, February.

    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:spr:eurpop:v:36:y:2020:i:3:d:10.1007_s10680-019-09543-y. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.