Parental Birth Order and General Upper Secondary Educational Attainment

Camilla Härtull , Åbo Akademi University
Jan M. Saarela, Abo Academy University

Some recent studies suggest that parental birth order may influence offspring educational attainment. However, no previous research on this interrelation has been concerned with the first stage of tracking into schools. We do so, and examine how parental birth order is associated with attainment of general upper secondary education in Finland. This first tracking point is greatly selective of persons who subsequently aim for university studies. We use three-generational register data on the total Finnish population and assess how the probability of having the matriculation examination at age 20 is associated with parental birth order. The total number of individuals in the child generation is 377,038. We find that the probability of having the matriculation examination decreases with parental birth order. Within-family analyses using cousin fixed effects models, which account for unobserved characteristics in the extended family, show also that having later-born parents, and in particular a later-born father, is negatively associated with first tracking into schools. These parental birth order patterns can be solely attributed to the fact that earlier-born parents are higher educated and found in higher social classes than later-born parents. The results largely corroborate findings from similar analyses of length of schooling in Sweden, although the contribution of parental education and social class is notably stronger in our study context.

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 Presented in Session 83. Economic Impacts of Population Change