Abstract
The extent to which siblings resemble each other measures the omnibus impact of family background on life chances. We study sibling similarity in cognitive skills, school grades, and educational attainment in Finland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We also compare sibling simi larity by parental education and occupation within these societies. The comparison of sibling correlations across and within societies allows us to characterize the omnibus impact of family background on education across social landscapes. Across countries, we find larger population-level differences in sibling similarity in educational attainment than in cognitive skills and school grades. In general, sibling similarity in edu-ca tion varies less across countries than sibling similarity in earnings. Compared with Scandinavian countries, the United States shows more sibling similarity in cognitive skills and educational attainment but less sibling similarity in school grades. We find that socioeconomic differences in sibling similarity vary across parental resources, countries, and measures of educational success. Sweden and the United States show greater sibling similarity in educational attainment in families with a highly educated father, and Finland and Norway show greater sibling similarity in educational attainment in families with a low-educated father. We discuss the implications of our results for the o ries about the impact of insti tu tions and income inequal ity on edu ca tional inequality and the mechanisms that underlie such inequality.
Original language | English (US) |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 1011-1037 |
Number of pages | 27 |
Journal | Demography |
Volume | 58 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2021 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Demography
Keywords
- Cross-national comparison
- Educational inequality
- Family background
- Siblings
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In: Demography, Vol. 58, No. 3, 2021, p. 1011-1037.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
TY - JOUR
T1 - Sibling similarity in education across and within societies
AU - Grätz, Michael
AU - Barclay, Kieron J.
AU - Wiborg, Øyvind N.
AU - Lyngstad, Torkild H.
AU - Karhula, Aleksi
AU - Erola, Jani
AU - Präg, Patrick
AU - Laidley, Thomas
AU - Conley, Dalton
N1 - Funding Information: Acknowledgments Previous versions of this paper were presented at the European Consortium for Sociological Research conference in Tallinn in 2015, at the 2016 annual meeting of the Population Association of America in Washington, DC, and at the 2016 German Socio-Economic Panel Study User Conference in Berlin. We thank participants at these meetings as well as Tina Baier, Richard Breen, John Ermisch, Jane Gingrich, Fabian Pfeffer, Lindsay Richards, and Elizabeth Washbrook for their comments and suggestions on this study. Data on Germany used in this publication were made available to us by the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) at the German Institute for Economic Research, Berlin. Grätz acknowledges funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation under grant agreement PZ00P1_180128 and from the Forskningsrådet om Hälsa, Arbetsliv och Välfärd (Forte) [2016-07099]. Access to the Swedish register data was supported by the Stockholm University SIMSAM Node for Demographic Research and Swedish Research Council grant 340-2013-5164. Barclay was supported by an ERC grant 336475 awarded to Mikko Myrskylä. Norwegian register data are used from two sources. The first data set is based on the HISTCLASS-project No. 275249, sponsored by the Norwegian Research Council project (PI: Marianne N. Hansen, University of Oslo). The second data set includes cognitive outcomes and was prepared for the Research Council of Norway’s FINNUT, project number 237831 (PI: Ingrid Sivesind Mehlum). Lyngstad acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (Grant Agreement No. 818420). Access to the Finnish register data was provided by Statistics Finland. Erola and Karhula acknowledge funding from the European Research Council (ERC-2013-CoG-617965), the Strategic Research Council at the Suomen Akatemia (Academy of Finland) for the project TITA (293103), and from the NORFACE DIAL project EQUALLIVES. Präg was supported by a grant (No. 681546) from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program and a grant (LabEx Ecodec/ANR-11-LABX-0047) Funding Information: from the French National Research Agency (ANR). Understanding Society is an initiative by the Economic and Social Research Council, with scientific leadership by the Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex, and survey delivery by the National Centre for Social Research and TNS BRMB. This research uses data from Add Health, a program project directed by Kathleen Mullan Harris and designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and funded by grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 23 other federal agencies and foundations. Special acknowledgment is due Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Information on how to obtain the Add Health data files is available on the Add Health website (http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth). No direct support was received from grant P01-HD31921 for this analysis. For the Panel Study of Income Dynamics portion of this analysis, we acknowledge the collection of data used in this study as being partly supported by the National Institutes of Health under grant number R01 HD069609 and the National Science Foundation under award number 1157698. Conley and Laidley acknowledge support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation: Grant for Research Network on Connected Learning (grant number 13-105643-000). Funding Information: Previous versions of this paper were presented at the Eurupean Consortium for Sociological Research conference in Tallinn in 2015, at the 2016 annual meeting of the Population Association of America in Washington, DC, and at the 2016 Ger man Socio-Economic Panel Study User Conference in Berlin. We thank par ticipants at these meet ings as well as Tina Baier, Richard Breen, John Ermisch, Jane Gingrich, Fabian Pfeffer, Lindsay Richards, and Elizabeth Washbrook for their comments and suggestions on this study. Data on Germany used in this publication were made available to us by the Ger man Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) at the Ger man Institute for Economic Research, Berlin. Gr?tz acknowledges funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation under grant agreement PZ00P1_180128 and from the Forskningsr?det om H?lsa, Arbetsliv och V?lf?rd (Forte) [2016-07099]. Access to the Swedish register data was supported by the Stockholm University SIMSAM Node for Demographic Research and Swedish Research Council grant 340-2013-5164. Barclay was supported by an ERC grant 336475 awarded to Mikko Myrskyl?. Nor wegian register data are used from two sources. The first data set is based on the HISTCLASS-project No. 275249, sponsored by the Norwegian Research Council project (PI: Marianne N. Hansen, University of Oslo). The second data set includes cognitive outcomes and was pre-pared for the Research Council of Norway?s FINNUT, pro ject number 237831 (PI: Ingrid Sivesind Mehlum). Lyngstad acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union?s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (Grant Agreement No. 818420). Access to the Finnish register data was provided by Statistics Finland. Erola and Karhula acknowledge funding from the European Research Council (ERC-2013-CoG-617965), the Strategic Research Council at the Suomen Akatemia (Academy of Finland) for the project TITA (293103), and from the NORFACE DIAL project EQUALLIVES. Pr?g was supported by a grant (No. 681546) from the European Research Council under the European Union?s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program and a grant (LabEx Ecodec/ANR-11-LABX-0047) from the French National Research Agency (ANR). Understanding Society is an ini tiative by the Economic and Social Research Council, with scientific leadership by the Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex, and sur vey delivery by the National Centre for Social Research and TNS BRMB. This research uses data from Add Health, a pro gram project directed by Kathleen Mullan Harris and designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and funded by grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with coop erative funding from 23 other federal agencies and foundations. Special acknowledgment is due Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Information on how to obtain the Add Health data files is available on the Add Health website (http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth). No direct support was received from grant P01-HD31921 for this analysis. For the Panel Study of Income Dynamics portion of this analysis, we acknowledge the collection of data used in this study as being partly supported by the National Institutes of Health under grant number R01 HD069609 and the National Science Foundation under award number 1157698. Conley and Laidley acknowledge support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation: Grant for Research Network on Connected Learning (grant number 13-105643-000). Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The Authors.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - The extent to which siblings resemble each other measures the omnibus impact of family background on life chances. We study sibling similarity in cognitive skills, school grades, and educational attainment in Finland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We also compare sibling simi larity by parental education and occupation within these societies. The comparison of sibling correlations across and within societies allows us to characterize the omnibus impact of family background on education across social landscapes. Across countries, we find larger population-level differences in sibling similarity in educational attainment than in cognitive skills and school grades. In general, sibling similarity in edu-ca tion varies less across countries than sibling similarity in earnings. Compared with Scandinavian countries, the United States shows more sibling similarity in cognitive skills and educational attainment but less sibling similarity in school grades. We find that socioeconomic differences in sibling similarity vary across parental resources, countries, and measures of educational success. Sweden and the United States show greater sibling similarity in educational attainment in families with a highly educated father, and Finland and Norway show greater sibling similarity in educational attainment in families with a low-educated father. We discuss the implications of our results for the o ries about the impact of insti tu tions and income inequal ity on edu ca tional inequality and the mechanisms that underlie such inequality.
AB - The extent to which siblings resemble each other measures the omnibus impact of family background on life chances. We study sibling similarity in cognitive skills, school grades, and educational attainment in Finland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We also compare sibling simi larity by parental education and occupation within these societies. The comparison of sibling correlations across and within societies allows us to characterize the omnibus impact of family background on education across social landscapes. Across countries, we find larger population-level differences in sibling similarity in educational attainment than in cognitive skills and school grades. In general, sibling similarity in edu-ca tion varies less across countries than sibling similarity in earnings. Compared with Scandinavian countries, the United States shows more sibling similarity in cognitive skills and educational attainment but less sibling similarity in school grades. We find that socioeconomic differences in sibling similarity vary across parental resources, countries, and measures of educational success. Sweden and the United States show greater sibling similarity in educational attainment in families with a highly educated father, and Finland and Norway show greater sibling similarity in educational attainment in families with a low-educated father. We discuss the implications of our results for the o ries about the impact of insti tu tions and income inequal ity on edu ca tional inequality and the mechanisms that underlie such inequality.
KW - Cross-national comparison
KW - Educational inequality
KW - Family background
KW - Siblings
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U2 - 10.1215/00703370-9164021
DO - 10.1215/00703370-9164021
M3 - Article
C2 - 33881509
AN - SCOPUS:85107163528
SN - 0070-3370
VL - 58
SP - 1011
EP - 1037
JO - Demography
JF - Demography
IS - 3
ER -