Curse or blessing: Investigating the education and income of firstborns and only boys

摘要

Due to social norms and traditions, birth order may have different qualitative and quantitative implications on the education and income of individuals in urban and rural areas. In this paper, we examine this issue by using the Japanese General Social Surveys data. We find that firstborns enjoy more education than later-borns, regardless of gender and the rurality of residence at age 15. We find similar results for income when education is not controlled for. Most strikingly, we find that the presence of male siblings is associated with higher income only for males who lived in a rural area at age 15, with or without controlling for education. These results suggest a potential disadvantage faced by rural boys with no male siblings, especially if they are not the first-born.