NYCSEA

Abstract: IThis research analyzes how numbers of brothers and sisters as well as the birth order affects his/her junior high school test score, and analyzes through what channels these variables function, using cross-sectional data from China where most families have up to 2 children. The two endougenous variables --- number of brothers and number of sisters --- are instrumented by the first child's gender and its interaction with dummy variables representing different applicable birth control policies. OLS regressions yield an insignificant negative relation between the test score and the number of brothers and sisters. But the 2SLS regressions find large positive impacts of numbers of brothers and sisters. The coefficients of number of brothers and sisters are similar indicating that gender of siblings does not affect test scores. Birth order has negative impacts on test scores and offsets almost all of the positive impact of siblings on the last born child, which means the positive effect of siblings benefits the older instead of the younger children. In addition, the mechanism study shows the numbers of brothers and sisters improve older children's test scores by increasing study time, reducing internet/video game time, and leading to family's requirement on them for outstanding academic performance and higher education degree attainment.​

Keywords: OLS regressions, 2SLS regressions.  Birth order, Impacts on test scores