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Family Size and Educational Attainment in England and Wales

Chan, T; Henderson, M; Stuchbury, R; (2019) Family Size and Educational Attainment in England and Wales. Population Studies , 73 (2) pp. 165-178. 10.1080/00324728.2019.1577479. Green open access

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Abstract

In this paper, we use linked census data from England and Wales to investigate whether having a large number of siblings leads to lower educational attainment. There is a large literature suggesting that with large sibship size, parental resources will be diluted and this, in turn, will lead to lower educational attainment. Using twin births and the sex composition of the sibling group as instrumental variables, we find that the evidence of a family size effect on educational attainment is rather uncertain. Similar results are obtained when we use occupational attainment as the dependent variable. We also demonstrate the confounding of birth order and family size effects, and show that an adjusted birth order index proposed by Booth and Kee provides an effective solution to this estimation problem.

Type: Article
Title: Family Size and Educational Attainment in England and Wales
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1080/00324728.2019.1577479
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1080/00324728.2019.1577479
Language: English
Additional information: This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.
Keywords: family size, educational attainment, linked census, twin study, instrumental variables
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Social Research Institute
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health > Epidemiology and Public Health
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10061436
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