Do birth order effects on secondary school track placement differ for natives and migrants? A within-family analysis in the German educational system

Authors: Klaus Pforr; Tobias Roth

Cooperation partners: Sandra Mingham, Meike Selbach

While previous research has shown negative effects of sibling birth order on competences and educational attainment in various Western countries with different educational systems, it is unclear whether these results also apply to migrant families. We argue that in migrant families where the children were born in the host country, the effects of birth order on secondary school placement should be weak or even reversed. In these families, parents' host country-specific resources and knowledge of the education system are likely to be comparatively low. Consequently, older siblings in these families who were born and raised in the host country can be an important source of information and support for their younger siblings. In addition, parents' knowledge of the education system should increase with the educational career of each of their children. The empirical analyses are based on the scientific use files of the microcensus from 2008 to 2016. Family fixed-effects models show negative birth order effects on secondary school placement for native siblings, first-generation migrant siblings and interethnic siblings, but not for second-generation migrant siblings. Thus, the empirical results suggest that negative birth order effects are not necessarily negative, but that children can even benefit from having older siblings under certain conditions.

Publikationen:

Roth, Tobias, Klaus Pforr, Sandra Mingham, and Meike Selbach (2022): "Do birth order effects on secondary school track placement differ between natives and migrants? A within-family analysis in the German educational system." European Sociological Review 38 (3): 440-454. doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcab047