Gender, sibling order, and differences in the quantity and quality of educational attainment: Evidence using Japanese twin data

Using 1,045 pairs of Japanese monozygotic twins, we examine differences in educational attainment by considering both the years of schooling (quantity) and the reputation of the last attended school (quality). We find that a difference in learning performance at 15 years of age is one of the key factors connected with differences in both quantity and quality of educational attainment. We also find that when the eldest child in the family is the female twin in the 1950s and 1960s birth cohorts, she forgoes 0.542 years of schooling over her younger twin sister; but for the same birth cohorts, when the eldest child in the family is the male twin, he gains some advantage in the quality of educational attainment over his younger twin brother. However, we find that as the Japanese economy has developed, any difference between twins disappears in subsequent birth cohorts, regardless of gender and sibling order.