The more the merrier?
Subtitle: the effect of family composition on children's education
By: Sandra E. Black, Paul J. Devereux, Kjell G. Salvanes.
Contributors: Devereux, Paul J.; Salvanes, Kjell G.; National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series ;; working paper 10720; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) ;; working paper no. 10720.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2004
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Subjects: Home and school -- Norway; Family -- Norway; Academic achievement -- Norway
Description: "Among the perceived inputs in the production' of child quality is family size; there is an extensive theoretical literature that postulates a tradeoff between child quantity and quality within a family.  However, there is little causal evidence that speaks to this theory.  Our analysis is able to overcome many limitations of the previous literature by using a rich dataset that contains information on the entire population of Norway over an extended period of time and allows us to match adult children to their parents and siblings.  In addition, we use exogenous variation in family size induced by the birth of twins to isolate causation.  Like most previous studies, we find a negative correlation between family size and children's educational attainment.  However, when we include indicators for birth order, the effect of family size becomes negligible.  This finding is robust to the use of twin births as an instrument for family size.  In addition, we find that birth order has a significant and large effect on children's education; children born later in the family obtain less education.  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"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
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Mode of access: World Wide Web.