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Kieron J Barclay - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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the production of inequalities within families and across generations the intergenerational effects of Birth Order and family size on educational attainment
2018Co-Authors: Kieron J Barclay, Torkild Lyngstad, Dalton ConleyAbstract:There has long been interest in the extent to which effects of social stratification extend and persist across generations. We take a novel approach to this question by asking whether Birth Order and sibling group size in the parental generation influences the educational attainment of their children. To address this question we use Swedish population data on cohorts born 1960-1982. To study the effects of parental Birth Order and family size we apply a cousin fixed effects design and exploit information on twin Births in the parents generation. Relative to having a first-born mother, having a second-born or fifth-born mother is associated with educational attainment at age 30 being 4% and 8% of a standard deviation lower, respectively. After adjusting for attained parental education and social class, the parental Birth Order effect is heavily attenuated. Nevertheless, we do find that children who share the same Birth Order and gender as their parents attain slightly more education, and this is particularly pronounced when the parents have higher levels of education themselves. We do not find clear or consistent evidence for parental sibling group size effects. Overall our results suggest that Birth Order and family size effects operate through a Markovian process of transmission.
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the Birth Order paradox sibling differences in educational attainment
2018Co-Authors: Kieron J BarclayAbstract:This study uses population register data to examine the relationship between Birth Order and educational attainment in Sweden, and demonstrates that while the net effect of Birth Order on educational attainment is negative, later-born children often spend longer in education. The explanation for this finding is due to educational expansion in Sweden in the 20th century, which outweighs the negative causal effect of Birth Order for the affected cohorts. This is particularly true for women due to the fact that the rate of increasing educational enrolment has been greater for women than for men. These results also show that later-borns in large families particularly benefit from educational expansion due to the longer average Birth interval between the first and last child in large families, meaning that the supply of educational opportunities increased to a greater extent in the intervening period. However, in periods where education is not expanding, later-born siblings continue to fare worse than first-borns.
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the Birth Order paradox sibling differences in educational attainment
2015Co-Authors: Kieron J BarclayAbstract:This study uses population register data to examine the relationship between Birth Order and educational attainment in Sweden, and demonstrates that while the causal effect of Birth Order on educational attainment is negative, later born children actually perform better. The explanation for this finding is due to educational expansion in Sweden in the 20th century, which outweighs the negative causal effect of Birth Order. This is particularly true for women due to the fact that the rate of increasing educational enrollment has been greater for women than for men. These results also show that later borns in large families particularly benefit from educational expansion due to the longer average Birth interval between the first and last child in large families. The difference between the negative causal effect and actual experience of Birth Order is likely to be contributing to the confusion regarding Birth Order effects in the literature.
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Birth Order and physical fitness in early adulthood evidence from swedish military conscription data
2014Co-Authors: Kieron J Barclay, Mikko MyrskylaAbstract:Physical fitness at young adult ages is an important determinant of physical health, cognitive ability, and mortality. However, few studies have addressed the relationship between early life conditions and physical fitness in adulthood. An important potential factor influencing physical fitness is Birth Order, which prior studies associate with several early- and later-life outcomes such as height and mortality. This is the first study to analyse the association between Birth Order and physical fitness in late adolescence. We use military conscription data on 218,873 Swedish males born between 1965 and 1977. Physical fitness is measured by a test of maximal working capacity, a measure of cardiovascular fitness closely related to V02max. We use linear regression with sibling fixed effects, meaning a within-family comparison, to eliminate the confounding influence of unobserved factors that vary between siblings. To understand the mechanism we further analyse whether the association between Birth Order and physical fitness varies by sibship size, parental socioeconomic status, Birth cohort or length of the Birth interval. We find a strong, negative and monotonic relationship between Birth Order and physical fitness. For example, third-born children have a maximal working capacity approximately 0.1 (p < 0.000) standard deviations lower than first-born children. The association exists both in small (3 or less children) and large families (4 or more children), in high and low socioeconomic status families, and amongst cohorts born in the 1960s and the 1970s. While in the whole population the Birth Order effect does not depend on the length of the Birth intervals, in two-child families a longer Birth interval strengthens the advantage of the first-born. Our results illustrate the importance of Birth Order for physical fitness, and suggest that the first-born advantage already arises in late adolescence.
Kari Hemminki - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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influence of family size and Birth Order on risk of cancer a population based study
2011Co-Authors: Melanie Bevier, Marianne Weires, Hauke Thomsen, Jan Sundquist, Kari HemminkiAbstract:Family size and Birth Order are known to influence the risk of some cancers. However, it is still unknown whether these effects change from early to later adulthood. We used the data of the Swedish Family-Cancer Database to further analyze these effects. We selected over 5.7 million offspring with identified parents but no parental cancer. We estimated the effect of Birth Order and family size by Poisson regression adjusted for age, sex, period, region and socioeconomic status. We divided the age at diagnosis in two groups, below and over 50 years, to identify the effect of family size and Birth Order for different age periods. Negative associations for increasing Birth Order were found for endometrial, testicular, skin, thyroid and connective tissue cancers and melanoma. In contrast, we observed positive association between Birth Order and lung, male and female genital cancers. Family size was associated with decreasing risk for endometrial and testicular cancers, melanoma and squamous cell carcinoma; risk was increased for leukemia and nervous system cancer. The effect of Birth Order decreased for lung and endometrial cancer from age at diagnosis below to over 50 years. Combined effects for Birth Order and family size were marginally significant for thyroid gland tumors. Especially, the relative risk for follicular thyroid gland tumors was significantly decreased for increasing Birth Order. Our findings suggest that the effect of Birth Order decreases from early to late adulthood for lung and endometrial cancer.
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Birth Order family size and the risk of cancer in young and middle aged adults
2001Co-Authors: Kari Hemminki, P MutanenAbstract:We used the Swedish Family-Cancer Database to analyse the effects of Birth Order and family size on the risk of common cancers among offspring born over the period 1958–96. Some 1.38 million offspring up to age 55 years with 50.6 million person-years were included. Poisson regression analysis included age at diagnosis, Birth cohort, socio-economic status and region of residence as other explanatory variables. The only significant associations were an increasing risk for breast cancer by Birth Order and a decreasing risk for melanoma by Birth Order and, particularly, by family size. When details of the women's own reproductive history were included in analysis, Birth Orders 5–17 showed a relative risk of 1.41. The effects on breast cancer may be mediated through increasing Birth weight by Birth Order. For melanoma, socio-economic factors may be involved, such as limited affordability of sun tourism in large families. Testis cancer showed no significant effect and prostate cancer was excluded from analysis because of the small number of cases. © 2001 Cancer Research Campaign http://www.bjcancer.com
Alison L. Booth - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Birth Order matters: the effect of family size and Birth Order on educational attainment
2009Co-Authors: Alison L. Booth, Hiau Joo KeeAbstract:Using the British Household Panel Survey, we investigate if family size and Birth Order affect children’s subsequent educational attainment. Theory suggests a trade-off between child quantity and “quality” and that siblings are unlikely to receive equal shares of parental resources devoted to children’s education. We construct a new Birth Order index that effectively purges family size from Birth Order and use this to test if siblings are assigned equal shares in the family’s educational resources. We find that the shares are decreasing with Birth Order. Ceteris paribus, children from larger families have less education, and the family size effect does not vanish when we control for Birth Order. These findings are robust to numerous specification checks.
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Birth Order matters the effect of family size and Birth Order on educational attainment
2009Co-Authors: Alison L. BoothAbstract:We use unique retrospective family background data from the 2003 British Household Panel Survey to explore the degree to which family size and Birth Order affect a child's subsequent educational attainment. Theory suggests a trade off between child quantity and 'quality'. Family size might adversely affect the production of child quality within a family. A number of arguments also suggest that siblings are unlikely to receive equal shares of the resources devoted by parents to their children's education. We construct a composite Birth Order index that effectively purges family size from Birth Order and use this to test if siblings are assigned equal shares in the family's educational resources. We find that they are not, and that the shares are decreasing with Birth Order. Controlling for parental family income, parental age at Birth and family level attributes, we find that children from larger families have lower levels of education and that there is in addition a separate negative Birth Order effect. In contrast to Black, Devereux and Kelvanes (2005), the family size effect does not vanish once we control for Birth Order. Our findings are robust to a number of specification checks.
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Birth Order matters the effect of family size and Birth Order on educational attainment
2005Co-Authors: Alison L. Booth, Hiau Joo KeeAbstract:We use unique retrospective family background data from the 2003 wave of the British Household Panel Survey to explore the degree to which family size and Birth Order affect a child’s subsequent educational attainment. Theory suggests a trade off between child quantity and ‘quality’. Family size might adversely affect the production of child quality within a family. A number of arguments also suggest that siblings are unlikely to receive equal shares of the resources devoted by parents to their children’s education. We construct a composite Birth Order index that effectively purges family size from Birth Order and use this to test if siblings are assigned equal shares in the family’s educational resources. We find that they are not, and that the shares are decreasing with Birth Order. Controlling for parental education, parental age at Birth and family level attributes, we find that children from larger families have lower levels of education, that there is a separate negative Birth Order effect, and that the family size effect does not vanish once we control for Birth Order. Our findings are robust to a number of specification checks.
Kjell G. Salvanes - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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healthy wealthy and wise Birth Order and adult health
2016Co-Authors: Sandra E. Black, Paul J. Devereux, Kjell G. SalvanesAbstract:While recent research has found that Birth Order affects outcomes such as education and earnings, the evidence for effects on health is more limited. This paper uses a large Norwegian dataset to focus on the relationship between Birth Order and a range of health and health-related behaviors, outcomes not previously available in datasets of this magnitude. Interestingly, we find complicated effects of Birth Order. First-borns are more likely to be overweight, to be obese, and to have high blood pressure and high triglycerides. For example, compared to fifth-borns, first-borns are about 5% points more likely to be obese and 7% points more likely to have high blood pressure. So, unlike education or earnings, there is no clear first-born advantage in health. However, first-borns are about 13% points less likely to smoke daily than fifth-borns and are more likely to report good physical and mental health. Later-borns also score lower on well-being with fifth-borns being about 9% points less likely than first-borns to report that they are happy. Our findings are generally monotonic with middle-borns having outcomes that are intermediate between first- and fifth-borns. We find that these effects are largely unaffected by conditioning on education and earnings, suggesting that these are not the only important pathways to health differentials by Birth Order. When we explore possible mechanisms, we find that early maternal investment may play a role in Birth Order effects on health.
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healthy wealthy and wise Birth Order and adult health
2015Co-Authors: Sandra E. Black, Paul J. Devereux, Kjell G. SalvanesAbstract:While recent research finds strong evidence that Birth Order affects children’s outcomes such as education, IQ scores, and earnings, the evidence for effects on health is more limited. This paper uses a large dataset on the population of Norway and focuses on the effect of Birth Order on a range of health and health-related behaviors, outcomes not previously available in datasets of this magnitude. Interestingly, we find complicated effects of Birth Order. First-borns are more likely to be overweight, to be obese, and to have high blood pressure and high triglycerides. So, unlike education or earnings, there is no clear first-born advantage in health. However, later-borns are more likely to smoke and have poorer self-reported physical and mental health. They are also less likely to report that they are happy. We find that these effects are largely unaffected by conditioning on education and earnings, suggesting that these are not the only important pathways to health differentials by Birth Order. When we explore possible mechanisms, we find that smoking early in pregnancy is more prevalent for first pregnancies than for later ones. However, women are more likely to quit smoking during their first pregnancy than during later ones, and first-borns are more likely to be breast-fed. These findings suggest a role for early maternal investment in determining Birth Order effects on health.
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healthy wealthy and wise Birth Order and adult health
2015Co-Authors: Sandra E. Black, Paul J. Devereux, Kjell G. SalvanesAbstract:While recent research finds strong evidence that Birth Order affects children’s outcomes such as education, IQ scores, and earnings, the evidence for effects on health is more limited. This paper uses a large dataset on the population of Norway and focuses on the effect of Birth Order on a range of health and health-related behaviors, outcomes not previously available in datasets of this magnitude. Interestingly, we find complicated effects of Birth Order. First-borns are more likely to be overweight, to be obese, and to have high blood pressure and high triglycerides. For example, compared to second-borns, first-borns are 4% more likely to be overweight, 2% more likely to be obese, 3% more likely to have high blood pressure, and 2% more likely to have high triglycerides. So, unlike education or earnings, there is no clear first-born advantage in Health. However, later-borns are more likely to smoke (first-borns are 5% less likely to smoke daily than second-borns) and are less likely to report good physical and mental health (the difference between a first- and second-born is about 1.5%). They are also less likely to report that they are happy (2% difference between first- and second-borns). We find that these effects are largely unaffected by conditioning on education and earnings, suggesting that these are not the only important pathways to health differentials by Birth Order. When we explore possible mechanisms, we find that early maternal investment may play a role in Birth Order effects on health.
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older and wiser Birth Order and iq of young men
2007Co-Authors: Sandra E. Black, Paul J. Devereux, Kjell G. SalvanesAbstract:While recent research finds strong evidence that Birth Order affects children's outcomes such as education and earnings, the evidence on the effects of Birth Order on IQ is decidedly mixed. This paper uses a large dataset on the population of Norway that allows us to precisely measure Birth Order effects on IQ using both cross-sectional and within-family methods. Importantly, irrespective of method, we find a strong and significant effect of Birth Order on IQ, and our results suggest that earlier born children have higher IQs. Our preferred estimates suggest differences between first-borns and second-borns of about one fifth of a standard deviation or approximately 3 IQ points. Despite these large average effects, Birth Order only explains about 3% of the within-family variance of IQ. When we control for Birth endowments, the estimated Birth Order effects increase. Thus, our analysis suggests that Birth Order effects are not biologically determined. Also, there is no evidence that Birth Order effects occur because later-born children are more affected by family breakdown.
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the more the merrier the effect of family size and Birth Order on children s education
2005Co-Authors: Sandra E. Black, Paul J. Devereux, Kjell G. SalvanesAbstract:There is an extensive theoretical literature that postulates a trade off between child quantity and quality within a family. However, there is little causal evidence that speaks to this theory. Using a rich dataset on the entire population of Norway over an extended period of time, we examine the effects of family size and Birth Order on the educational attainment of children. While we find a negative correlation between family size and children's education, when we include indicators for Birth Order and/or use twin Births as an instrument, family size effects become negligible. In addition, Birth Order has a significant and large negative effect on children's education. We also study adult earnings, employment, and teenage childbearing, and find strong evidence for Birth Order effects with these outcomes, particularly among women. These findings suggest the need to revisit economic models of fertility and child 'production', focusing not only on differences across families but differences within families as well.
Andre Portela Souza - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Birth Order child labor and school attendance in brazil
2008Co-Authors: Patrick M Emerson, Andre Portela SouzaAbstract:This paper examines the effects of Birth Order on the child labor incidence and school attendance of Brazilian children. Evidence from the psychology and sociology literature suggests that earlier-born children tend to have higher innate abilities. The economic implications of these findings are that earlier-born children may have more intra-household resources directed to them when they are young, and better outcomes as adults in areas such as education and earnings. However, in the context of child labor, the effects of Birth Order can be confounded by the fact that earlier born children are able to command higher wages than their younger siblings. Also, in the presence of capital constraints, poor families may not be able to afford to send their earlier born children to school, but may be able to send their later-born children due to the income earned by their older siblings. This paper presents both a theoretical discussion and an empirical investigation of the relationship between Birth Order and child labor. The results from the empirical investigation show that, in fact, male first-born children are less likely to attend school than their later born siblings and that male last-born children are less likely to work as child laborers than their earlier born siblings. For female children, first-borns are less likely to go to school than their later born counterparts. These findings are intriguing as they run counter to the received wisdom of the effects of Birth Order, but make sense when considering the child labor decision of poor families in the face of capital constraints.
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Birth Order child labor and school attendance in brazil
2008Co-Authors: Patrick M Emerson, Andre Portela SouzaAbstract:Summary This paper examines the effects of Birth Order on intra-household allocations as evidenced by the child labor incidence and school attendance of Brazilian children. Previous studies have found that earlier born children may have more intra-household resources directed to them, and better outcomes as adults. In the context of child labor, the effects of Birth Order can be confounded by the fact that earlier born children are able to command higher wages than their younger siblings. Empirical results show that, in fact, male and female first-born children are less likely to attend school than their later born siblings and male last-born children are less likely to work as child laborers than their earlier born siblings.