Iacovou, Maria; (2002) Education, the labour market and the family. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This thesis consists of three papers investigating the relationships between family structure, the education system, and children's outcomes. "Class Size In The Early Years: Is Smaller Really Better?" estimates the effects of class size on student attainment. Ordinary Least Squares estimates suggest that attainment is unrelated to class size; however, Instrumental Variables estimates, with class size instrumented by the interaction between school size and school type, show a significant and sizeable association between smaller classes and attainment in reading in the early years of school. "Family Composition And Children's Educational Outcomes" explores the relationship between sibship structure and educational outcomes, in the context of theories of dilution of parental resources. Consistent with theory are the findings that children from large families are disadvantaged, as are children lower down the birth order; however, the finding that only children perform worse than those from two-child families, even controlling for a whole range of parental and school characteristics, is not. Only children are at more of a disadvantage on mathematical measures of performance than on language measures, suggesting that these skills are acquired via different processes. "Fertility And Female Labour Force Participation" investigates the endogeneity of children variables in the female labour supply equation, using the fact that parents in industrialized countries prefer their families to consist of equal numbers of girls and boys. Mothers whose first two children are of the same sex are more likely to have a third child than mothers with a girl and a boy; this is used as an exogenous instrument for the birth of a third child. Children variables are found to be endogenous in the female labour supply and hours of work functions, and failure to account for this leads to exaggerated estimates of the negative effect of children on female labour supply.

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