Sibship size and status attainment across contexts: Evidence from the Netherlands, 1840-1925

Hilde Bras, Jan Kok and Kees Mandemakers
Additional contact information
Hilde Bras: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
Jan Kok: Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
Kees Mandemakers: International Institute for Social History (IISH)

Demographic Research, 2010, vol. 23, issue 4, 73-104

Abstract: This paper investigates the effects of sibship size on status attainment across different contexts and subgroups. Resource dilution theory predicts that with larger sibship size, children’s status outcomes fall. However, the empirical record has shown that this is not always the case. In this paper we have tested three alternative hypotheses for neutral or even positive effects of sibship size on status attainment on the basis of a large-scale registry database covering the period of industrialization and fertility decline in the Netherlands in the nineteenth and early twentieth-century. Our findings offer support for the family developmental cycle, buffering by kin groups, and socio-economic development as alternative explanations to the resource dilution hypothesis.

Keywords: Netherlands; family size; 19th century; sibship size; status attainment; child well-being; resource dilution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J1 Z0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol23/4/23-4.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:dem:demres:v:23:y:2010:i:4

DOI: 10.4054/DemRes.2010.23.4

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Demographic Research from Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Editorial Office ().