Strategic Parenting, Birth Order and School Performance / V. Joseph Hotz, Juan Pantano.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hotz, V. Joseph.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Pantano, Juan.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w19542.

NBER working paper series no. w19542

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2013.

Summary:

Fueled by new evidence, there has been renewed interest about the effects of birth order on human capital accumulation. The underlying causal mechanisms for such effects remain unsettled. We consider a model in which parents impose more stringent disciplinary environments in response to their earlier-born children's poor performance in school in order to deter such outcomes for their later-born offspring. We provide robust empirical evidence that school performance of children in the NLSY-C declines with birth order as does the stringency of their parents' disciplinary restrictions. And, when asked how they will respond if a child brought home bad grades, parents state that they would be less likely to punish their later-born children. Taken together, these patterns are consistent with a reputation model of strategic parenting.

Notes:

Print version record

October 2013.