How Does Size of Sibship Matter? Family Configuration and Family Effects on Educational Attainment

Abstract

Using data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study for full sibships of sizes two to five, we estimate models of the effects of social background, size of sibship, and gender on sibling resemblance in educational attainment. We find no differences in educational attainment by gender composition within those family sizes. Smaller sibships obtain more schooling, and men obtain more schooling than women. Smaller families are more heterogeneous than larger families, but the effects of measured social background characteristics do not vary by size of sibship or gender composition of sibship. The effects of social background variables on the schooling of women are uniformly smaller than among men, and the nonshared (within-family) variations in schooling are much smaller among women than among men. These findings could lead to incorrect inferences that families matter more for women than for men or that large families experience more varied outcomes than small families.