The name is absent

Distal family factors

children tend to benefit from their elder siblings and from interactions with other
children (Iacovou, 2001). In most studies the effects of family size on children’s
educational attainment remains significant and fairly stable. This is, on average,
children raised in small families achieve higher educational qualifications than
children raised in large families.

Overall, based on replication and good longitudinal evidence there is a relatively
strong effect of family size on children’s school achievement. Although family size
and birth order matter for child development, a number of interactions remain
empirically unexplained. Parental experience gained from raising the first born child
may be important. This may have positive as well as negative externalities for second
and subsequent children. Similarly, how much young children benefit from their older
siblings is relatively unresearched. It may be the case that young children are
negatively influenced by their older siblings, especially with respect to behavioural
development.

5.3.2 The effects of prior parental education on family size

Evidence on the raw negative relationship between parental education and family size
is robust. A simple correlation analysis shows that parents with more education have,
on average, fewer children (Ferri & Smith, 2003). The interpretation of the causality
of this relation is difficult.

From theory, there are four interrelated pathways by which education may affect
family size, mainly via effects on parents’ choices regarding the number of children.
First, parents with high education may place a higher valuation of child attainment
relative to child quantity which may limit family size in order to maximize children
attainments (Becker, 1991; Joshi, 2000). Secondly, education may increase the
opportunity cost of employment and so induces a substitution between fertility and
employment (De Tray, 1973; Hobcraft & Kiernan, 1999; Mooney, 1984; Schultz,
1981. Thirdly, education may reduce childbearing time (Dale & Egerton, 1997) and,
fourthly, lead to better understanding of contraception and so enable the achievement
of desired family size (Blackwell & Bynner, 2002; Rosenzweig & Schutlz, 1989). It is
extremely difficult to test for these mechanisms and the evidence is rather limited.

In addition, a number of unobservable factors affecting these relationships may cause
confounding bias, such that what may appear to be the effect of education on family
size is caused by other individual characteristics that affect both choices, for example
ambition. Also important is the reverse causality of family size on education as having
a child may also affect the choice to continue in schooling. As a result low education
is in part attributable to early entry into parenthood. In general, weak evidence exists
on the causal effects of parental education on family size, i.e. on the causal effects of
education on the trade-off between child quality and quantity and on the trade-off
between child quality and the labour market.

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