Blake J
School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles 90024-1772.
Science. 1989 Jul 7;245(4913):32-6. doi: 10.1126/science.2740913.
Family background continues to be closely related to individuals' educational attainment in the United States. A notable change in one aspect of this background, number of siblings, is occurring as fertility is becoming extremely low. Examination of the negative relation between individuals' sibling number and years of schooling indicates that education among those with many siblings is disproportionately cut short before high school graduation. Because there is a strong negative relation between number of siblings and scores on tests measuring verbal ability, recent reductions in sibling number would be expected to contribute to enhanced verbal ability and increasing years of schooling for those born now in the United States.
在美国，家庭背景仍然与个人的教育程度密切相关。随着生育率变得极低，这一背景的一个方面——兄弟姐妹数量——正在发生显著变化。对个人兄弟姐妹数量与受教育年限之间的负相关关系进行研究表明，兄弟姐妹多的人接受教育的时间在高中毕业后被不成比例地缩短。由于兄弟姐妹数量与衡量语言能力的测试分数之间存在很强的负相关关系，预计近期兄弟姐妹数量的减少将有助于提高美国现在出生人群的语言能力，并延长其受教育年限。
