ABSTRACT

This paper examines the effect of birth order on educational attainment in the United States and the underlying mechanism producing these effects. Using a family fixed effects model, we find negative birth order effects on educational outcomes. However, this effect varies depending on the household's income, being the strongest for households with the highest income and diminishing as households' income decreases. In addition, we show that the timing of income across childhood is important for completed education, as the largest gap in educational attainment between siblings emerges between those who were born and spent their early childhood in wealthier households.

摘要

本文探讨了美国出生顺序对受教育程度的影响以及产生这些影响的潜在机制。使用家庭固定效应模型，我们发现出生顺序对教育成果有负面影响。然而，这种影响因家庭收入而异，对于收入最高的家庭来说效果最强，随着家庭收入的下降而减弱。此外，我们还发现，童年时期的收入时间对于完成教育很重要，因为兄弟姐妹之间受教育程度的最大差距出现在那些在富裕家庭出生并度过幼儿期的人之间。