Engzell, Per;
Haellsten, Martin;
(2025)
A caution on sibling comparisons in studying effects of the rearing environment.
European Sociological Review
, 41
(5)
pp. 808-821.
10.1093/esr/jcae037.
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Abstract
Recent studies use sibling fixed effects to estimate the influence of the family environment on children, a practice we call the 'discordant family design'. These studies suffer from a disconnect between the use of within-family variation, on the one hand, and relevant theories which mostly refer to variation between families on the other. In addition, reverse causality, within-family confounding, selection into identification, and measurement error complicate their interpretation further. We discuss three applied examples - the effects of parenting, family income, and neighbourhood context - and provide some general guidance. To avoid misinterpretation, researchers should have a strong grasp of the variance that enters into estimation, and not just the potential confounders a given strategy is designed to deal with.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | A caution on sibling comparisons in studying effects of the rearing environment |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1093/esr/jcae037 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcae037 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact reprints@oup.com for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site—for further information please contact journals.permissions@oup.com. |
| 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 |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10217349 |
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