Gender, sibship structure, and educational inequality in Taiwan: Son preference revisited

This study examines how sibship characteristics affect educational attainment in Taiwan. Using a multilevel analysis of a sibling sample of 12,715 observations from 3,001 families drawn from a national survey, we investigate the effects of family size, sibship density, birth-order rank, and sibship gender composition. The results support the argument that the effect of son preference on intrafamily educational inequality is conditional on family resources. We also find, however, that male firstborns, who are the ultimate inheritors of paternal authority in Chinese families, have additional leverage in the sibling competition for family resources. The privilege for firstborns does not extend to daughters. Therefore, we argue that culturally defined norms regarding seniority and gender help shape intrafamily resource allocation in Chinese society. Key Words: education, family dynamics, norms, sibship structure. Research on family structure and educational outcomes has linked children's number of siblings, ordinal position of birth, sibship gender composition, and age differences from siblings with the educational resources that they receive (Blake, 1989; Conley, 2000; Downey, 2001; Steelman & Powell, 1989). One emphasis of this literature has been how sibship configuration is associated with intrafamily gender inequality in educational opportunities (Steelman, Powell, Werum, & Carter, 2002), particularly in developing countries (Buchmann, 2000; Parish & Willis, 1993; Sudha, 1997). Despite this interest in intrafamily educational inequality in less industrialized societies, the effects of a full range of sibship characteristics on sons' and daughters' educational opportunities have not been analyzed systematically. In this study, we used a multilevel analysis of sibling data to investigate how sibship size, the gender composition of siblings, and the age spacing between siblings affect educational inequality between sons and daughters in Taiwanese families. The multilevel modeling approach used in this study extends research in international contexts by taking into account unmeasured family traits that may affect children's schooling (Hauser & Mossel, 1985). This analytical approach allows us to rigorously examine educational inequality within families, which most previous research using nonsibling data has failed to do. We also examine how the different meanings of birth-order rank between sons and daughters in Chinese culture affect sibling competition for educational resources. Like other Confucianisminfluenced societies in East Asia, the cultural context of Taiwanese families highlights not only gender differences but also hierarchical family relations (Stacey, 1983). Prior studies taking cultural norms into account rarely have extended beyond the effect of parental gender preferences on children's schooling (Greenhalgh, 1985; Post, 2001). We call particular attention to Chinese family norms concerning seniority. As the analysis reveals, the different roles prescribed for children according to both their gender and birth-order rank in Chinese families help explain educational inequality. This research contributes to the sibship literature by providing an understanding of how the cultural context shapes family dynamics. BACKGROUND Arguments for the importance of sibship configuration are based on the notion that a child's structural position in the sibship constrains the parents' ability to invest in the child's schooling. Sibship size is thought to be inversely associated with children's educational achievement because parents become less capable of providing attention and funds for each child as family size increases (Blake, 1985; Downey, 1995, 2001; Steelman & Powell, 1989). Later born children are likely to benefit from their parents' improving financial status over the life course and thus have greater educational attainment (Steelman & Powell, 1991; Van Eijck & De Graaf, 1995). …