Gender Differences and the Effects of Sibling Composition on Parents’ Educational Expectations: Findings from a Case of China

Proceedings of The 2nd International Conference on Modern Approach in Humanities and Social Sciences

Year: 2019

DOI:

[Fulltex PDF]

Gender Differences and the Effects of Sibling Composition on Parents’ Educational Expectations: Findings from a Case of China

Yun Jiang

ABSTRACT: 

With rich information from the 2013/14 wave of China Education Panel Survey Data, this study used the ordinary least squares regression with the statistical package STATA to examine the effects of teenager gender, the number of siblings and sibling sex composition on parents’ educational expectations in China. Different from previous studies in China, this study found that parents have higher educational expectations for girls than for boys, and a larger return of human capital of girls might be one of the answers to this phenomenon. Additionally, residential areas, parents’ educational levels, and father’s professional status show a more significant impact on boys than girls on parents’ educational expectations. This study also focuses on the sibling composition in the family, which includes the number of siblings and the sibling sex composition. Consistent with the dilution model, a larger number of siblings undermines parents’ educational expectations, but it has no gender differences. Due to the previous family planning policy, a large number of Chinese families only have one child. I found that in both only-child families and non-only-child families, parents still have higher educational expectations on girls, and even in non-only-child families this preference for girls is more significant. Different as expected, sibling sex composition does not show any statistically significant influence on parents’ educational expectations.

Keywords: Asia; education; family background; reversed gender gap; social class.