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Sibling Similarity in Family Formation

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  • Raab, Marcel
  • Fasang, Anette Eva
  • Karhula, Aleksi
  • Erola, Jani

Abstract

Sibling studies have been widely used to analyze the impact of family background on socioeconomic and, to a lesser extent, demographic outcomes. We contribute to this literature with a novel research design that combines sibling comparisons and sequence analysis to analyze longitudinal family-formation trajectories of siblings and unrelated persons. This allows us to scrutinize in a more rigorous way whether sibling similarity exists in family-formation trajectories and whether siblings’ shared background characteristics, such as parental education and early childhood family structure, can account for similarity in family formation. We use Finnish register data from 1987 through 2007 to construct longitudinal family-formation trajectories in young adulthood for siblings and unrelated dyads (N = 14,257 dyads). Findings show that family formation is moderately but significantly more similar for siblings than for unrelated dyads, also after controlling for crucial parental background characteristics. Shared parental background characteristics add surprisingly little to account for sibling similarity in family formation. Instead, gender and the respondents’ own education are more decisive forces in the stratification of family formation. Yet, family internal dynamics seem to reinforce this stratification such that siblings have a higher probability to experience similar family-formation patterns. In particular, patterns that correspond with economic disadvantage are concentrated within families. This is in line with a growing body of research highlighting the importance of family structure in the reproduction of social inequality.

Suggested Citation

  • Raab, Marcel & Fasang, Anette Eva & Karhula, Aleksi & Erola, Jani, 2014. "Sibling Similarity in Family Formation," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 51(6), pages 2127-2154.
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:262160
    DOI: 10.1007/s13524-014-0341-6
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Arnstein Aassve & Francesco C. Billari & Raffaella Piccarreta, 2007. "Strings of Adulthood: A Sequence Analysis of Young British Women’s Work-Family Trajectories," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 23(3), pages 369-388, October.
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    Cited by:

    1. Andrade, Stefan B. & Fasang, Anette Eva & Helske, Satu & Karhula, Aleksi, 2023. "Typologies in Sequence Analysis: Practical Guidelines for Identifying Robust Cluster Solutions," SocArXiv kj8d5, Center for Open Science.
    2. Liao, Tim F. & Bolano, Danilo & Brzinsky-Fay, Christian & Cornwell, Benjamin & Fasang, Anette Eva & Helske, Satu & Piccarreta, Raffaella & Raab, Marcel & Ritschard, Gilbert & Struffolino, Emanuela & S, 2022. "Sequence analysis: Its past, present, and future," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 107, pages 1-1.

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