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The importance of being earliest: birth order and educational outcomes along the socioeconomic ladder in Mexico

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  • Lucio Esposito

    (University of East Anglia)

  • Sunil Mitra Kumar

    (King’s College London)

  • Adrián Villaseñor

    (University of York)

Abstract

We study the effect of birth order on educational outcomes in Mexico using 2 million observations from the 2010 Census. We find that the effect of birth order is negative, and a variety of endogeneity and robustness checks suggest a causal interpretation of this finding. We then examine whether these effects vary across households’ economic status, and we find significant heterogeneity across absolute as well as relative standards of living, operationalized as household wealth and relative deprivation. Finally, we find that firstborns’ advantage is amplified when they are male, and in particular when other siblings are female.

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  • Lucio Esposito & Sunil Mitra Kumar & Adrián Villaseñor, 2020. "The importance of being earliest: birth order and educational outcomes along the socioeconomic ladder in Mexico," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(3), pages 1069-1099, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jopoec:v:33:y:2020:i:3:d:10.1007_s00148-019-00764-3
    DOI: 10.1007/s00148-019-00764-3
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    6. Zhang, Shumeng & Guo, Naijia & Zhang, Junsen, 2023. "Reexamining the effect of birth order on cognitive and non-cognitive abilities: New evidence from China," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).

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