Blaabæk Ea Hoppe, Jæger Mads Meier, Molitoris Joseph
Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen, Øster Farimagsgade 5, Building 16, 1014 Copenhagen, Denmark.
Centre for Economic Demography, Lund University, Scheelevägen, 15B, 223 63 Lund, Sweden.
Eur J Popul. 2019 Nov 28;36(3):575-600. doi: 10.1007/s10680-019-09543-y. eCollection 2020 Jul.
This paper analyses the effect of family size on children's educational attainment using a new research design that combines fixed effects and instrumental variable (IV) approaches. We use (a) data on first cousins who belong to the same extended family but to different nuclear families to control for extended family fixed effects and (b) variation in in-married spouses' number of siblings (a proxy for their fecundity and preferences) as an IV for variation in family size within extended families. We find that family size has a negative causal effect on educational attainment and, moreover, that the negative effect is smaller in families with stronger social ties. Our results suggest that contextual characteristics outside the nuclear family moderate the negative effect of family size on children's educational attainment.
本文采用一种结合固定效应和工具变量（IV）方法的新研究设计，分析家庭规模对子女教育成就的影响。我们利用（a）属于同一大家庭但不同核心家庭的表亲数据来控制大家庭的固定效应，以及（b）已婚配偶兄弟姐妹数量的变化（作为其生育能力和偏好的代理变量）作为大家庭内部家庭规模变化的工具变量。我们发现，家庭规模对教育成就有负面因果效应，此外，在社会关系更强的家庭中，这种负面影响较小。我们的研究结果表明，核心家庭之外的背景特征会缓和家庭规模对子女教育成就的负面影响。
