Birth Order, Family Size, and Achievement

Do birth order and the size of one’s childhood family influence environment, thereby potentially affecting future achievement? This article investigates the hypothesis that they do, presenting two major empirical findings. First, neither birth order nor childhood family size significantly influences the level or growth rate of wages, a result that is consistent with previous research. Second, family size is both a statistically and economically significant determinant of women’s employment status: women from small families work less than women from large families when they are young and more than women from large families when they are more mature.