Sibling gender composition and women’s wages

Citation

Cools, Angela & Patacchini, Eleonora (2017). Sibling gender composition and women’s wages. IZA Discussion Paper Series. vol. 11001

Abstract

We examine the impact of sibling gender composition on women’s adult earnings. Using data from Add Health, we find that women with any brothers earn roughly 10 percent less than women with no brothers in their late 20s and early 30s. This effect is primarily due to lower earnings within broadly defined education and occupation groups. We then explore mechanisms that may explain this result. We do not find strong evidence that differences in parental investment, cognitive ability, self-reported personality traits, or parental expectations drive our results. However, we find that more family-centered behavior (including family responsibilities, being in a committed relationship, and intention to have children) among those with brothers partially explains the result. We then confirm our results with data from the NLSY-CYA.

URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3041797

Reference Type

Journal Article

Journal Title

IZA Discussion Paper Series

Author(s)

Cools, Angela
Patacchini, Eleonora

Year Published

2017

Volume Number

11001

DOI

10.2139/ssrn.3041797

Reference ID

9174