Sibling Spillover in Rural China: A Story of Sisters and Daughters

Cynthia Bansak, Xuan Jiang and Guanyi Yang

No 13127, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We find a strong positive sibling spillover effect in two-children households in rural China, as measured by an increase in the Chinese and Math test scores of elder siblings when their younger sibling starts school. We use the Chinese Law of Compulsory Education as an exogenous variation in the timing of school enrollment to control for the impact of simultaneous and unobserved out-of-sibship factors. The mechanism for the sibling spillover likely comes from an increase in studying interactions within the sibling pairs. The spillover is prompted by having a younger sister enter school and is the strongest when both children are daughters. However, the son-preference culture emphasized in certain regions negatively offsets the positive sister-led spillover.

Keywords: intrahousehold allocation; son preference; school cutoff; sibling spillover; peer effect; human capital; rural China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C68 E24 J30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2020-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-mac and nep-tra
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Published - published as 'Sibling spillovers in rural China: A story of sisters' in: China Economic Review, 2022, 76, 101873

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