Does sibling gender affect women's education, employment, wages, and family formation? : Evidence from Japan
Previous studies examined the impact of sibling composition on children's education, wage, employment, and family formation after they grow up. These studies assumed that women having a younger brother are likely to accommodate gender role division due to changes in parental relationships and women's own behavior, leading to lower wages. However, most previous studies used the data from Western countries and the impact of sibling composition in other countries has not been examined yet. This study examines the impact of sibling composition on children's education, wage, employment, and family formation using Japanese data. To control the bias owing to the preference of parents for the gender of children, this study compares the first-born women having the next youngest brother and the first-born women having the next youngest sister. The estimated results show five findings. First, first-born women having the next youngest brother are likely to be university graduates. Second, the hourly wage rate of first-born women having the next youngest brother decreases by about 9%. Women having the next youngest brother are less likely to work full-time and more likely to be housewives. Additionally, the impact of having the next youngest brother is not observed in the choice of industry and occupation. Third, the results of Unconditional Quantile Regression show that the negative impact of the next youngest brother on the wage is strong at the top of the wage distribution. This result suggests that the negative impact of the next youngest brother may increase the gender wage gap. Fourth, women having the next youngest brother are likely to be married and have children, and their hours of housework tend to increase. Fifth, women having the next youngest brother positively believe in gender role division.
