The Effect of a Sibling's Gender on Earnings, Education and Family Formation

Noemi Peter, Petter Lundborg and Dinand Webbink ()
Additional contact information
Dinand Webbink: Erasmus University Rotterdam

No 9128, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We examine how the gender of a sibling affects earnings, education and family formation. Identification is complicated by parental preferences: if parents prefer certain sex compositions over others, children's gender affects not only the outcomes of other children but also the very existence of potential additional children. We address this problem by looking at dizygotic twins. In these cases, the two children are born at the same time, so parents cannot make decisions about one twin based on the gender of the other twin. We find that the gender of the sibling influences both men and women, but in a different way. Men with brothers earn more and are more likely to get married and have children than men with sisters. Women with sisters obtain lower education and give birth earlier than women with brothers. Our analysis shows that the family size channel cannot explain the findings. Instead, the most likely explanation is that siblings affect each other via various social mechanisms.

Keywords: twins; sex composition; sibling gender; income; schooling; fertility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J00 J16 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2015-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published - published in: Labour Economics, 2016, 54, 61-78

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Related works:
Working Paper: The Effect of a Sibling's Gender on Earnings, Education and Family Formation (2018)
Working Paper: The Effect of Sibling's Gender on Earnings, Education and Family Formation (2015)
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