How Gender and Birth Order Affect Educational attainment Inequality within-Families: Evidence from Benin

TL;DR

This study investigates how gender, birth order, and parental education influence within-family educational disparities in Benin, revealing significant effects of these factors and the limited impact of universal education policies.

Contribution

It provides a structural model of within-family educational choices and quantifies the effects of gender and birth order on educational inequality in a developing country context.

Findings

Gender and birth order account for over two-thirds of disparities in non-educated households.

Educational inequality is twice as high among non-educated parents compared to college-educated ones.

Universal education reduces inequality but does not eliminate gender-based disparities.

Abstract

This paper examines how gender, birth order, and innate ability shape within-household disparities in children's educational attainment in developing countries. Using data from Benin, I find that in households with non-educated parents, gender and birth order drive over two-thirds of the average educational attainment disparities among adult children, while their influence decreases to one-third in households with college-educated parents. Furthermore, average inequality, measured by the range of children's educational attainment is twice as high among non-educated parents compared to college-educated parents. I propose and estimate a structural model of educational attainment choices within-family. Using the model, I show that the absence of gender and birth order effects does not lead to a significant reduction in the average within-family disparities in children's educational attainment. Additionally, in theory, ensuring that every child has at least one year of education lowers average within-family educational inequality. Yet, even in this scenario, daughters tend to receive less education than sons, and practical efforts to achieve universal entry are less effective than the theoretical model.