Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics

Working Paper Series,
IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy

No 2007:15: Family size and child outcomes: Is there really no trade-off?

Olof Åslund () and Hans Grönqvist ()
Additional contact information
Olof Åslund: IFAU - Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation, Postal: P O Box 513, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden
Hans Grönqvist: Uppsala University, Postal: Department of Economics, P O Box 513, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden

Abstract: Recent empirical work questions the negative relationship between family size and children’s attainments proposed by theoretical work and supported by a large empirical literature. We use twin births as an exogenous source of variation in family size in an unusually rich dataset where it is possible to separately look at intermediate and long run outcomes. We find little evidence of a causal effect on long term outcomes such as years of schooling and earnings, and studies that do not take selection effects into account are likely to overstate the effects. We do, however, find a small but significant negative impact of family size on grades in compulsory and secondary school.

Keywords: Family size; twin births; education; earnings

JEL-codes: I20; J13

41 pages, June 11, 2007

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