The name is absent

Distal family factors

relationship that turned out to be unsatisfactory. The total effect of educational
attainments on partnership dissolution depends on which effect dominates.

Kiernan and Mueller (1998) suggest that the observed increase in risk of partnership
dissolution among those with less education in the UK (Berthold, 2000; Hobcraft,
2000), may be in large measure due to the formation of early partnerships and
poverty. Kiernan (Kiernan, 1997) and Hoem (1997) have estimated effects of
education on the formation and dissolution of partnerships but family structure
appears to be fairly independent of parental education.

5.2.3 Summary

We conclude therefore that family structure has effects on development through
income and is therefore of medium importance as a distal factor. The area has,
moreover been well researched with good longitudinal designs and replication.
However, education has a complex relation to family structure, producing both
positive and negative effects of the probability of parental separation. These positive
and negative effects more or less cancel out. Therefore, we do not see family structure
as an important mediator of education effects. It is important as a distal factor but not
as a channel for effects of parental education.

5.3. Family size

Two main dimensions of the role of family size as distal factor have been analysed in
the literature. As a total number, e.g. three children, family size affects the amount of
resources available per child in the home context. As birth ordering, resource
availability per child depends on the relative birth position as well as the age
differential between dependent children.

5.3.1 The effects of family size on children’s educational attainment

Because of resource constraints at the household level some economic models predict
that the greater the size of the family the lower future educational attainments and
earnings for children since every additional child receives relatively fewer parental
resources (Becker & Tomes, 1976). This, however, may be offset somewhat by the
positive externalities that exist from older children for their younger siblings (Blake,
1981), as well as by resources or activities that parents can share with one or many
children without affecting individual parental proximal processes, e.g. a visit to the
zoo referred to as ‘public’ time in Hanushek (1992).

Empirical evidence from the US and the UK suggests that children from small
families tend to achieve higher educational qualifications than children raised in large
families (Baydar et al., 1997; Hauser & Sewell, 1983; Iacovou, 2001). However, the
effect of family size on educational attainment depends on birth order (Behrman &
Taubman, 1986; Dearden, 1999). First born children achieve higher educational
qualifications not because of parental favouritism but by having a higher probability
of belonging to a small family (Hanushek, 1992). But at the same time, younger

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