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O Brother, Where Art Thou? The Effects of Having a Sibling on Geographic Mobility and Labour Market Outcomes
Author(s) -
RAINER HELMUT,
SIEDLER THOMAS
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
economica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.532
H-Index - 65
eISSN - 1468-0335
pISSN - 0013-0427
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0335.2008.00696.x
Subject(s) - sibling , brother , thou , competition (biology) , german , outcome (game theory) , demographic economics , economics , social mobility , affect (linguistics) , labour economics , psychology , developmental psychology , microeconomics , sociology , geography , ecology , philosophy , social science , theology , archaeology , communication , anthropology , biology
This paper formulates a model to explain how parental care responsibilities and family structure interact in affecting children's mobility characteristics. Our main result is that the mobility of young adults crucially depends on the presence of a sibling. Siblings compete in location and employment decisions to direct parental care decisions towards their preferred outcome. Only children are not exposed to this kind of competition. This causes an equilibrium in which siblings exhibit higher mobility than only children, and also have better labour market outcomes. Using data from the German Socio‐Economic Panel, we find evidence that confirms these patterns.