Birth Order and Educational Attainment in Full Sibships

The idea that birth order influences intellectual development and social success has recently been revived, despite the accumulated evidence that birth order effects are often negligible or artifactual. In this paper, the association of birth order with educational attainment (as measured by years of schooling completed) is examined among 9,000 Wisconsin high school graduates of 1957 and among their full sibships, including more than 30,000 men and women. Whether we look at selection into the sample of high school graduates, postsecondary educational attainments of those graduates, or educational attainments within full sibships, there are no significant or systematic effects of birth order on schooling when other relevant variables have been controlled. Years of education appear to increase with birth order when family size is controlled, but this happens because secular increases in schooling have occurred within as well as across families.