Work

Education, Birth Order and Family Size

Year: 2020

Type: article

Abstract: This article introduces a framework to study parental investments in the presence of birth order preferences and/or human capital cost differentials across children. The framework yields canonical models as special cases and delivers sharp testable predictions concerning how parental investments respond to an exogenous change in family size in the presence of birth order effects. These predictions characterize a generalised quantity–quality trade-off. Danish administrative data confirm our theory’s predictions. We find that for any given parity, the human capital profile of children in smaller families dominates that of large families, and that the average child’s education decreases as family size increases, even after taking birth order effects into consideration.

Source: The Economic Journal

DOI: 10.1093/ej/ueaa089

Authors: Jesper Bagger, Javier A Birchenall, Hani Mansour, Sergio Urzúa

Institutions: Royal Holloway University of London, Aarhus University, University of California, Santa Barbara, University of Colorado Denver

Language: English

Topic: Family Dynamics and Relationships

Subfield: Demography

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $4,463

OpenAlex ID: W3122965561

FWCI: 0.376

Cites: 40

Cited by: 5

Related to: 20