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New Partner, New Order? Multipartnered Fertility and Birth Order Effects on Educational Achievement.

ABSTRACT: A substantial amount of research shows that younger siblings perform worse than their older sisters and brothers in several socioeconomic outcomes, including educational achievement. Most of these studies examined stable families and excluded half-siblings. However, the increasing prevalence of multipartnered fertility implies that many children grow up in nonnuclear families. We examine whether there is evidence for birth order effects in this context, which offers an opportunity to test and potentially expand the explanatory scope of the two main theories on birth order effects. We use comprehensive Norwegian registry data to study siblings in the 1985-1998 cohorts born to mothers or fathers who parented children with at least two partners. We provide evidence for negative effects of birth order on lower secondary school grades in both cases. Children born to fathers displaying multipartnered fertility tend to have lower grades than older full siblings but perform more similarly or better compared with older half-siblings. For siblings born to mothers with the multipartnered fertility pattern, later-born siblings do worse in school compared with all older siblings. This indicates that negative birth order effects tend to operate either within or across sets of full siblings, depending on the sex of the parent displaying multipartnered fertility. We argue that these findings can be explained by a combination of resource dilution/confluence theory and sex differences in residential arrangements following union dissolutions. We also suggest an alternative interpretation: maternal resources could be more important for generating negative birth order effects.

SUBMITTER: Lillehagen M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7584560 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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New Partner, New Order? Multipartnered Fertility and Birth Order Effects on Educational Achievement.

Lillehagen Mats M Isungset Martin Arstad MA

Demography 20201001 5

A substantial amount of research shows that younger siblings perform worse than their older sisters and brothers in several socioeconomic outcomes, including educational achievement. Most of these studies examined stable families and excluded half-siblings. However, the increasing prevalence of multipartnered fertility implies that many children grow up in nonnuclear families. We examine whether there is evidence for birth order effects in this context, which offers an opportunity to test and po ...[more]

PMID: 32935301

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Project description:Visual impairment due to myopia is an important public health issue. A prior analysis of population-based cohorts aged 15 to 22 years recruited from the United Kingdom and Israel suggested myopia and high myopia were approximately 10% more common in first-born compared with later-born children.To examine whether myopia was associated with birth order in an earlier generation than studied previously and, if so, whether the association was attenuated after adjusting for education exposure, as predicted by the hypothesis that the education of children with later birth orders is less intense.Cross-sectional study of UK Biobank participants recruited from 2006 to 2010. Analysis was restricted to participants aged 40 to 69 years who had a vision assessment, self-reported white ethnicity, and no history of eye disorders (N?=?89,120). Myopia and high myopia were defined as autorefraction of -0.75 diopters (D) or less and -6.00 D or less, respectively.Birth order and information on potential confounders including highest educational qualification ascertained using a structured questionnaire.Odds ratios (ORs) for myopia and high myopia by birth order, using logistic regression and adjusting for age and sex (model 1) or age, sex, and highest educational qualification (model 2).In model 1 (no adjustment for education), birth order was associated with both myopia and high myopia (eg, comparing first- vs second-born individuals; OR, 1.12; 95% CI, 1.08-1.16; P?=?1.40E-11 and OR, 1.21; 95% CI, 1.11-1.30; P?=?3.60E-06 for myopia and high myopia, respectively). The risk for myopia became progressively lower for later birth orders, suggesting a dose response. In model 2 (after adjusting for education), the effect sizes were attenuated by approximately 25% (OR, 1.09; 95% CI, 1.05-1.12; P?=?1.30E-06 and OR, 1.15; 95% CI, 1.06-1.25; P?=?4.60E-04 for myopia and high myopia, respectively) and the apparent dose response was abolished.These data suggest that the association between birth order and myopia is not due to a new environmental pressure in the last 30 to 40 years. The attenuated effect size after adjusting for educational exposure supports a role for reduced parental investment in education of children with later birth orders in their relative protection from myopia.

Dataset Information

New Partner, New Order? Multipartnered Fertility and Birth Order Effects on Educational Achievement.

Publications

New Partner, New Order? Multipartnered Fertility and Birth Order Effects on Educational Achievement.

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