We examine how the gender of a sibling affects earnings, education and family formation. Identification is complicated by parental preferences: if parents prefer certain sex compositions over others, children's gender affects not only the outcomes of other children but also the very existence of...

Social scientists theorize that the inverse relationship between socio-economic status and family size represents a trade-off between the quality and quantity of children. Evaluating this hypothesis empirically requires addressing the simultaneity of the quality and quantity decisions....

Social scientists theorize that the inverse relationship between socio-economic status and family size represents a trade-off between the quality and quantity of children. Evaluating this hypothesis empirically requires addressing the simultaneity of the quality and quantity decisions....

Evidence on a causal link between family size and children’s education, as in the tradeoff suggested by Gary S. Becker between child quantity and quality, is still inconclusive. Recent empirical studies have focused heavily on China, exploiting for identification the country’s One-Child...