Does sibling gender affect personality traits?

Bart Golsteyn () and Cécile A.J. Magnée

Economics of Education Review, 2020, vol. 77, issue C

Abstract: This paper studies whether sibling gender affects personality traits. We use the idea that if parents decide to have a second child, it is random whether they will have a boy or a girl. Therefore, the relationship between the second-born sibling's gender and the first sibling's personality traits is causal. We employ longitudinal data from a large British cohort which is followed from birth onwards. The dataset includes personality traits at age 10 and 16. Our main result is that oldest boys in a household are more agreeable if their next-born sibling is a girl. This effect is robust across age (10 and 16), when controlling for among others family size, and when applying corrections for multiple hypothesis tests. Agreeableness is an important trait in life as it has been shown to correlate positively among others with being employed, having a skilled job, savings, and life satisfaction.

Keywords: Sibling gender composition; Personality traits (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I2 J12 J16 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Does Sibling Gender Affect Personality Traits? (2020)
Working Paper: Does Sibling Gender Affect Personality Traits? (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:77:y:2020:i:c:s0272775719307344

DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2020.102016

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