Sibling correlations in socioeconomic status are one of the key measures of equality of opportunity and social mobility, providing an omnibus examination of the importance of family background. Typically, these correlations are interpreted as the combined effects of shared sibling background and...

We present credible and comparable evidence on intergenerational educational mobility in 53 developing countries using sibling correlation as a measure, and data from 230 waves of Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). This is the first paper, to our knowledge, to provide estimates of sibling...

Couples' residential decisions are based on a large variety of factors including housing preferences, family and other social ties, socialisation and residential biography (e.g. earlier experience in the life course) and environmental factors (e.g. housing market, labour market). This study...

We quantify intergenerational and assortative processes by comparing different degrees of kinship within the same generation. This "horizontal" approach yields more, and more distant kinship moments than traditional methods, which allows us to account for the transmission of latent advantages in...

Existing research has found that since the late 1960s, the pathway to adulthood in Western countries has undergone complex changes, but few studies have investigated such changes and the effect of childhood family background on the transition to adulthood within the Chinese context. This study...

We investigate whether primary care physician and patient concordance in terms of socio-economic status (SES) reduces the SES inequality in health. We measure physicians' SES by their childhood SES and find that SES concordance decreases low-SES patients' mortality, while high-SES patients'...

This paper examines causal sibling spillover effects among socially advantaged (e.g. white, two-parent, or non-poor school district) and disadvantaged families (e.g. black, single-mother, or poor school district) in elementary and middle school. Exploiting discontinuities in school starting age...

Intergenerational transmission exists in parents’ and children’s educational attainment as well as in biological genetic inheritance. In fact, it impacts educational attainment transfer across generations in many ways. This article elaborates from different angles on the characteristics,...

This paper develops a parsimonious model of incomplete credit and job markets in which family background helps children invest in education and land jobs. As some competent children lacking in social connections are shut out of good jobs, both their incentives and accessibility in investing in...

The educational attainment of siblings is highly correlated. We test for a specific type of peer effect between siblings in educational attainment: genetic nurture. Specifically, we test whether a person’s educational attainment is correlated with their sibling’s polygenic score (PGS) for...

Für viele Erwerbstätige sind "atypische Arbeitszeiten" Realität. Für die Vereinbarkeit von Familie und Beruf stellen ungünstige Arbeitszeitlagen wie Arbeit auf Abruf, Schichtarbeit, Nacht- und Wochenendarbeit spürbare Hindernisse und Belastungsmomente dar. Die Flexibilisierung der...

This paper studies whether sons and daughters reproduce in their relationships the same intra-household inequalities observed for their parents in terms of some economic statuses (wages, income, work hours, and education). Additionally, we emphasize the relevance of transmission of preference...

We introduce a novel strategy to study the intergenerational transmission of human capital, net of genetic skill transfers. For this purpose, we use unique data on children conceived through sperm and egg donation in IVF treatments in Denmark. Because the assignment of donors is not selective,...

This handbook chapter focuses on important interactions between the family and culture. We discuss the wide range of global variation in family institutions, variation which is in part sustained by cultural differences, and important recent changes in family structures. The chapter discusses why...

This paper provides new evidence supporting that gender differences in post-graduate educational choices contribute to the glass ceiling in the labor market. We study the decision to pursue an advanced degree form an internationally renowned institution, which greatly facilitates access to top...

[Hintergrund] Familien sind das Grundgerüst unserer Gesellschaft. Die Corona-Pandemie hat daran nichts geändert - im Gegenteil. Corona hat nicht nur gezeigt, wie wichtig Familie für den Zusammenhalt im Privaten sein kann, sondern auch für den Zusammenhalt in der Gesellschaft. Gleichwohl hat...

Parents preferring sons tend to have more children until a boy is born and concentrate investment in boys for a given number of children (sibsize). Thus, having a brother may affect a child's education in two ways: an indirect effect by keeping sibsize lower and a direct rivalry effect where...

This paper studies whether sons and daughters reproduce in their relationships the same intra-household inequalities observed for their parents in terms of some economic statuses (wages, income, work hours, and education). Additionally, we emphasize the relevance of transmission of preference...

This paper studies whether sons and daughters reproduce in their relationships the same intra-household inequalities observed for their parents in terms of some economic statuses (wages, income, work hours, and education). Additionally, we emphasize the relevance of transmission of preference...

Labor market outcomes of welfare reform have been the subject of extensive research by economists, but there has been relatively little work on living arrangements, which was an important focus of reformers. Our research fills that gap by using data from the March CPS to examine the impacts of...

This paper examines how child maltreatment is affected by the economic circumstances of parents. 'Child maltreatment' encompasses a wide range of behaviors that adversely affect children. It includes neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and other forms of abuse or neglect. Using state-level...

We analyze data from the Minnesota Twin Registry (MTR), combined with the Socioeconomic Survey of Twins (SST), and new mortality data, and contribute to two bodies of literature. First, we demonstrate a beneficial causal effect of education on health and longevity in contrast to other twin-based...

Using that schools are in session during the school year and out of session during the summer, it is possible to isolate the effect of schooling on learning. This natural experiment situation can also be used to see whether schooling compensates for disadvantageous social backgrounds. Using a...

This paper investigates the health of white adolescents, focusing particularly on the roles of family background and preventive medical care. This emphasis is motivated in part by our desire to study adolescent health in the context of the nature-nurture controversy. The findings indicate first,...

Basic biology tells us that each child has no more than two biological parents, one who supplies the egg and one who supplies the sperm. Adoption law in this country has generally followed biology, insisting only two parents be legally recognized for each child. Thus, every adoption begins with...

A large body of research has examined the relationship between family size and child well-being in developing countries, but most of this literature has focused on the consequences of high fertility. The impact of family size in a low-fertility developing country context remains unknown, even...

The United States has a teenage birth rate that is high relative to that of other developed countries, and falling more slowly. Children of teenagers may experience difficult childhoods and hence be more likely to commit crimes subsequently. I assess to what extent lagged teen birth rates can...

In this paper, another aspect of optimizing behavior is considered. Specifically, it asks whether variations in levels of attained schooling across groups can be explained by a model that assumes that capital markets are perfect and that individuals maximize wealth. The logic of the analysis...

We examine the impact of family income during childhood on the type of secondary school that German children attend, a good indicator of their lifetime socioeconomic attainment. By contrast with several US child outcome studies, we find that late-childhood income is a more important determinant...

In this paper we analyse the sibling size and birth-order effect on educational achievement in Switzerland on the basis of PISA data. We find an overall modest size and birth-order effect. The sibling size effect, however, is a product of a substantial and significant negative size effect for...

Based on the individual-level data of the PISA 2000 study, this note provides a detailed econometric analysis of the way that reading test scores are associated with individual and family background information and with characteristics of the school and class of the 15 to 16 year old respondents...

This paper is concerned with the relationship among family members in the determinants of destination language proficiency among immigrants. A model of immigrant language proficiency is augmented to include dynamics among family members. It is tested using data on a sample of recent immigrants....