Year: 2014
Type: dissertation
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Of all the influences on childhood development, the family environment is particularly powerful.We study how birth order affects short-and long-run outcomes for boys relative to girls across a wide range of adolescent and adult outcomes found in remarkably rich register-data from Denmark.One innovation is our focus on families with two or more children where the first two children are of mixed sex: families that are otherwise nearly identical on observable characteristics due to the genetic lottery.We find substantial birth order effects, including a novel result that second-born boys in these families are 20% more likely to be imprisoned compared to boys from very similar families but happen to be born first.We also find that second-born children have lower test scores, complete less schooling, and have moderately lower earnings as adults.We further contribute to the literature by exploring mechanisms.The birth-order effect on reading scores is larger for girls than for boys, and time-use data shows that parents invest relatively less time on schoolwork for second-born girls compared to second-born boys.We can rule out that differences in the length of maternity leave, maternal labor supply early in life, the use of daycare early in life, and parental divorce can explain the main findings.Finally when considering spacing we find that the results are stronger for children born close together, consistent with time constraints for new parents and greater sibling influences.* We would like to thank Marianne Simonsen and Helena Skyt Nielsen for valuable
Author: Sanni Breining
Institution: Aarhus University
Language: English
Subfield: Demography
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Reduced inequalities
Open Access status: green
Funder: Danmarks Frie Forskningsfond
Award: G1768166755
OpenAlex ID: W2188004822