THE EFFECT OF SIBLING SEX COMPOSITION ON WOMENS EDUCATION AND EARNINGS

This paper documents the impact of siblings on the education of men an d women born in the United States between 1920 and 1965. We examine th e effect of the number and sex composition of a boy or girl's siblings on that child's educational attainment. We find that throughout the c entury women's educational choices have been systematically affected b y the sex composition of her siblings, and that men's choices have not . Women raised only with brothers have received on average significant ly more education than women raised with any sisters, controlling for household size. Since sibling sex composition affects women's educatio nal attainment and plausibly may be unrelated to other determinants of earnings, it may. provide a useful instrument for education in earnin gs functions for women. Our results suggest that standard estimates si gnificantly underestimate the return to schooling for women.