Birth Order and the Intrahousehold Allocation of Time and Education

Abstract

Finn Tarp, two anonymous referees and seminar participants at University of Colorado and George Washington University for helpful suggestions and comments. We would also like to thank Robert E. Evenson for use of the data set and for answering numerous questions about it. AbstractA potential determinant of intrahousehold distribution is the birth order of children. While a number of studies have analysed birth order effects in developed countries there are still only a few dealing with developing countries. This paper develops a model of intrahousehold allocation with endogenous fertility, which captures the relation between birth order and investment in children and shows that a birth order effect in intrahousehold allocation can arise even without assumptions about parental preferences for specific birth order children or genetic endowments varying by birth order. The important contribution is that fertility is treated as endogenous, something which other models of intrahousehold allocation have ignored despite the large literature on determinants of fertility. The implications of the model are that children with higher birth orders have an advantage over siblings with lower birth orders and that parents who are inequality averse will not have more than one child. The model furthermore shows that not taking account of the endogeneity of fertility when analysing intrahousehold allocation may seriously bias the results. The effects of a child's birth order on its human capital accumulation are analysed using a longitudinal data set from the Philippines. Contrary to most longitudinal data sets this data set covers a very long period. We are, therefore, able to examine the effects of birth order on both number of hours in school during education and completed education. The results for both are consistent with the predictions of the model. JEL Classification Numbers: D1, I2, J2, O12.

Center-Based Care in the Context of One-Child Policy in China: Do Child Gender and Siblings Matter?

“…Child characteristics included gender, age, member of ethnic minority, and the presence of siblings. Birth order and siblings' age and gender have been reported as important factors that influence intrahousehold educational investments among children (Ejrnaes and Portner 2004;Garg and Morduch 1998;Hatzitheologou 1997). To capture the roles of siblings' genderand age-related characteristics in affecting the center-based care enrollment of the focal child, we further divided siblings into subgroups, including male or female, younger or older (compared to the focal child), and preschool (0-6 years old) or school (7-18 years old) ages.…”

Have the poor always been less likely to migrate? Evidence from inheritance practices during the age of mass migration

“…Other research in development economics documents the relationship between aspects of one’s childhood household – including birth order, family size, and gender composition of siblings – and the human capital acquisition and labor force participation of children (Edmonds, 2006; Erjnaes and Portner, 2004; Garg and Morduch, 1998; Psacharopoulos and Patrinos, 1997). 2 We add to this literature by studying the effect of household composition on another outcome, namely migration.…”

Intergenerational Transmission of Fertility Patterns*

“…Different birth‐order children may systematically differ in their receptiveness to transmission of family culture [see for example Hendershot (1969), Ejrnaes and Portner (2004), and Black, Devereux and Salvanes (2005)]. Hendershot (1969) suggests there are differences in the degree of ‘socialization’ across birth order and that first born are more likely to conform to parental norms as they are more susceptible to social pressure from parents than are subsequent children.…”