Sibship Size and Educational Attainment in Peninsular Malaysia: Do Policies Matter?

Abstract

The Second Malaysian Family Life Survey is used to explore one of the most important components of interfamily inequality of school attainment: sibship size. The survey data document the differences in the effects of sibship size on childreni's secondary school attainment among Malaysia's three ethnic communities. They also show the response of the sibship size effect to public policies targeting the ethnic Malay population. Three broad questions cani be addressed using the available data: First, how important is sibship size as a determinant of educational attainment, ceteris paribus, within the Malay and nonMalay populations? Second, how have the effects of sibship size changed over time? Third, are there ethnic differences in any such changes, differences that could be interpreted in light of the government's regulation of school supply and employnment opportunities for each group? Addressing these questions in the case of Malaysia illuminates the extent to which public policy more generally can alter the effect of sibship size on educational attainlment. Thefindings indicate that restrictions on family size by each of Malaysia's ethnic groups zvere a rational attempt by parents to compensate for constraints on their ability to invest in their children's education.

Sibship Size and Educational Attainment: Evidence of Cohort Trends from 26 Low-Fertility Countries

“…She also finds that there is no significant sibship size penalty across cohorts in rural areas, which gives further evidence that the negative sibsize-education association may not necessarily hold in less developed contexts. Similar results are also found for Malaysia (Pong 1997) and Taiwan (Parish and Willis 1993).…”

“…(Lu and Treiman 2008:813). Indeed, some studies documented evidence of positive or non-negative associations (Lu and Treiman 2008;Maralani 2008;Parish and Willis 1993;Pong 1997) and others reported remarkable temporal variations within societies (Gibbs, Workman, and Downey 2016;Lu and Treiman 2008). These studies suggest that a negative relationship between sibship size and educational outcomes is not a universal phenomenon but a topic that should be examined through a comparative lens.…”

Family size, adolescents’ schooling and the Demographic Transition: Evidence from Brazil

“…Nonetheless, most of the empirical work in developing countries that has examined the associations between family size and schooling attainment confirms the negative association: children from larger families exhibit educational disadvantages compared to children from smaller families (Anh et al 1998;Knodel and Wongsith 1991;Maralani 2008;Parish and Willis 1993;Patrinos and Psacharopoulos 1997;Pong 1997;Post and Pong 1998;Shavit and Pierce 1991). Past research has argued that the strength of the relationship varies with institutional and socioeconomic development (Knodel, Havanon, and Sittitrai 1990;Lu and Treiman 2008 for China;Maralani 2008 for Indonesia).…”

“…Among these studies, only a few have examined change over time: Post and Pong 1998 have found decreasing effects of sibship size on educational attainment in Hong Kong, while Pong (1997) has found increases in the negative impact of sibship size on secondary school attainment in Malaysia over a period of rising government regulation of school supply and employment opportunities (Pong 1997). Parish and Willis (1993) found an increasing effect of family size on educational attainment in Taiwan, despite declining average family size and increasing average income.…”

“…While a considerable body of research exists for developed countries, with a few exceptions (Anh et al 1998;Lu and Treiman 2008;Maralani 2008;Parish and Willis 1993;Post and Pong 1998;Pong 1997), there is less coverage of empirical research that makes a serious attempt at identifying the association between siblings dynamics and educational outcomes outside the United States and Western Europe (Steelman et al 2002).…”