The Production of Inequalities within Families and across Generations

The Intergenerational Effects of Birth Order on Educational Attainment

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2234829
AutoresK Barclay (0000-0002-5142-8467, Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study, 752 38 Uppsala, Sweden; Department of Sociology, Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden; Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, 18057 Rostock, Germany, autor correspondente), Torkild Hovde Lyngstad (0000-0001-7830-9305, University of Oslo), D Conley (0000-0002-5174-7222, National Bureau of Economic Research), Dalton C Conley (Department of Sociology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA; National Bureau for Economic Research, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA)
Ano2021
Volume37
Fascículo4
Páginas607-625
Data de publicação2021-07-29
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoEuropean Sociological Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0266-7215 • E-ISSN: 1468-2672
EditoraOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/esr/jcab005
OpenAlexW3133538863
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas5
Referências citadas53

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 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, we use cousin fixed effects comparisons. In analyses where we compare cousins who share the same biological grandparents to adjust for unobserved factors in the extended family, we find that having a later-born parent reduces educational attainment to a small extent. For example, a second- or fifth-born mother reduces educational attainment by 0.09 and 0.18 years, respectively, while having a second- or fifth-born father reduces educational attainment by 0.04 and 0.11 years, respectively. After adjusting for attained parental education and social class, the parental birth order effect is practically attenuated to zero. Overall our results suggest that parental birth order influences offspring educational and socioeconomic outcomes through the parents own educational and socioeconomic attainment. We cautiously suggest that parental birth order may have potential as an instrument for parental socioeconomic status in social stratification research more generally

Biology · Birth order · Demographic economics · Developmental psychology · Economic growth · Economics · Educational attainment · Educational inequality · Grandparent · Inequality · Offspring · Population · Pregnancy · Social class · Social science · Social stratification · Socioeconomic status · Sociology · Birth, Development, and Health · Cognitive Abilities and Testing · Demography · Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies · Mathematics · Psychology