Studies on the role of birth order in educational achievement in developing countries have yielded contradictory findings. This study uses unique and novel data on 4,362 siblings living in alternative care families in 54 countries. Results suggest negative birth order effects among biological...

Birth order effects in developed countries are consistently negative. That is, the later a child is born within a family, the worse their adult economic outcomes relative to their earlier-born siblings are. However, studies of birth order effects in emerging countries are scarcer and yield...