The Trivers Willard hypothesis that higher maternal quality is associated with a higher sex ratio is tested using a large population survey from 12 European countries. Several outcomes are studied, the proportion of children born who are male and the sex of the first three children. The...

University tuition fees for undergraduates were abolished in Ireland in 1996. This paper examines the effect of this reform on the socio-economic gradient to determine whether the reform was successful in achieving its objective of promoting educational equality that is improving the chances of...

This paper investigates whether teenagers are educationally advantaged if their parents are educators, using PISA data for Great Britain and Ireland. It examines whether teachers’ children do better at tests of reading ability. The results show that children whose fathers teach at third level...

This paper re-examines a finding by Crow et al. (1998) showing that equal skill of right and left hands – hemispheric indecision - is associated with deficits in cognitive ability. This is consistent with the idea that failure to develop dominance of one hemisphere is associated with various...

University tuition fees for undergraduates were abolished in Ireland in 1996. This paper examines the effect of this reform on the socio-economic gradient (SES) to determine whether the reform was successful in achieving its objective of promoting educational equality. It finds that the reform...

This paper uses a cross-country representative sample of Europeans over the age of 50 to analyse whether individuals’ height is associated with higher or lower levels of well-being. Two outcomes are used: a measure of depression symptoms reported by individuals and a categorical measure of...

In a 2005 paper Kanezawa proposed a generalisation of the classic Trivers-Willard hypothesis. It was argued that as a result taller and heavier parents should have more sons relative to daughters. Using two British cohort studies, evidence was presented which was partly consistent with the...

This paper addresses the question of whether higher levels of education contribute to greater tolerance of homosexuals. Using survey data for Ireland and exploiting a major reform to education, the abolition of fees for secondary schools in 1968, it is shown that increases in education causes...

Numerous papers have documented a positive association between height and good physical health and also with good economic outcomes such as earnings. A smaller number have argued for an association with well-being. In this paper, cross-country data from Europe is used to analyse whether...