Premium
Impact of Sibship Size, Birth Order and Sex Composition on School Enrolment in Urban Turkey *
Author(s) -
Dayioğlu Meltem,
Kirdar Murat G.,
Tansel Aysit
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
oxford bulletin of economics and statistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.131
H-Index - 73
eISSN - 1468-0084
pISSN - 0305-9049
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0084.2008.00540.x
Subject(s) - birth order , sibling , fertility , instrumental variable , composition (language) , order (exchange) , demography , psychology , demographic economics , developmental psychology , economics , econometrics , sociology , population , linguistics , philosophy , finance
This paper investigates, in a unified framework, the effects of sibship size, birth order and sibling sex composition on children's school enrolment in urban Turkey. We utilize an instrumental variable estimation method to address parents’ joint fertility and schooling decisions using twin births as instruments. We find no causal impact of sibship size on school enrolment. However, there is evidence for a parabolic impact of birth order where middle‐born children fare worse. Sex composition of siblings matters only for female children. Our finding that birth order and sibling sex composition matter more for poorer households suggests that scarce financial resources play an important role in bringing about the sibling composition effects.