How Gender and Birth Order Affect Educational attainment Inequality within-Families: Evidence from Benin

Christelle Zozoungbo

Papers from arXiv.org

Abstract: This paper examines how gender, birth order, and innate ability shape within-household disparities in children's educational attainment in developing countries. Using data from Benin, I find that in households with non-educated parents, gender and birth order drive over two-thirds of the average educational attainment disparities among adult children, while their influence decreases to one-third in households with college-educated parents. Furthermore, average inequality, measured by the range of children's educational attainment is twice as high among non-educated parents compared to college-educated parents. I propose and estimate a structural model of educational attainment choices within-family. Using the model, I show that the absence of gender and birth order effects does not lead to a significant reduction in the average within-family disparities in children's educational attainment. Additionally, in theory, ensuring that every child has at least one year of education lowers average within-family educational inequality. Yet, even in this scenario, daughters tend to receive less education than sons, and practical efforts to achieve universal entry are less effective than the theoretical model.

Date: 2024-04, Revised 2024-11
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