‘Differences in parental age within a family of siblings are independent of genetics’
Wouldn’t increased parental age have an effect even within families - eg increased risk of chromosomal abnormalities and de novo mutations? Perhaps this isn’t the kind of genetics you have in mind.
It made me think of Kristensen and Bjerkedal (2007) who rule out the possibility that prenatal gestational variables associated w/birth order cause differences in outcomes between elder and younger siblings.
I do wonder about the issue of cultural transmission more broadly though. Alesina et al (2022) do an excellent study of the pre-Chinese Communist Revolution elite, showing that their descendants' human capital rebounds even after massive wealth confiscation. The authors show that the cultural attitudes of the descendants are mediated by co-residence w/their parents (i.e. if their parents died, the cultural attitudes towards hard work aren't present) and they show that these cultural attitudes are meaningfully correlated w/hours worked. But they don't do the co-residence analysis w/educational attainment as the outcome variable, which is the analysis that I think would be needed to definitively endorse a cultural explanation of variation in human capital.
Question: how is house value registered? How does the data account for the difference between renters vs home owners?
Because £3000 seems a surprisingly small cost. I suspect many of us would trade a 2% smaller house for a sibling, although I suppose that depends how nice your sibling is…
See the footnote.
‘Differences in parental age within a family of siblings are independent of genetics’
Wouldn’t increased parental age have an effect even within families - eg increased risk of chromosomal abnormalities and de novo mutations? Perhaps this isn’t the kind of genetics you have in mind.
I enjoyed this article very much!
It made me think of Kristensen and Bjerkedal (2007) who rule out the possibility that prenatal gestational variables associated w/birth order cause differences in outcomes between elder and younger siblings.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1141493
I do wonder about the issue of cultural transmission more broadly though. Alesina et al (2022) do an excellent study of the pre-Chinese Communist Revolution elite, showing that their descendants' human capital rebounds even after massive wealth confiscation. The authors show that the cultural attitudes of the descendants are mediated by co-residence w/their parents (i.e. if their parents died, the cultural attitudes towards hard work aren't present) and they show that these cultural attitudes are meaningfully correlated w/hours worked. But they don't do the co-residence analysis w/educational attainment as the outcome variable, which is the analysis that I think would be needed to definitively endorse a cultural explanation of variation in human capital.
http://davidyyang.com/pdfs/revolutions_draft.pdf
Question: how is house value registered? How does the data account for the difference between renters vs home owners?
Because £3000 seems a surprisingly small cost. I suspect many of us would trade a 2% smaller house for a sibling, although I suppose that depends how nice your sibling is…
What about the gap between siblings? A younger sibling with 5 or more years between them and any older sibling competes less for parental resources.