Impact Of Sibling Number And Sibling Structure On Intergenerational Mobility

Intergenerational mobility is an important indicator that reflects social equity and indicates the degree to which the socioeconomic status of the offspring changes relative to the parent.On the one hand,good intergenerational mobility can promote fair opportunities,enhance social vitality,improve innovation capacity,ease income gaps,and promote sustained and healthy economic growth;on the other hand,it can also help increase personal enthusiasm and enhance happiness.The issue of intergenerational mobility is not only the focus of social discussions,but also the focus of research in the field of economics,especially the decision mechanism of intergenerational mobility.Among them,family factors have an important impact on intergenerational mobility.This article studies the impact on intergenerational flow from the perspective of the number of siblings and the structure of siblings.We first conducted a study on the relationship between the number of siblings and intergenerational mobility,and tried to use the instrumental variable method and propensity score matching method to solve possible endogenous problems;secondly,we studied the impact of family structure on intergenerational mobility,And further investigate whether the impact of family size and family structure on intergenerational mobility is different between different genders,urban and rural areas.The results of the study show that:(1)The number of siblings is significantly negatively correlated with intergenerational upward mobility.The greater the number of siblings,the lower the possibility of individuals achieving intergenerational upward mobility.After considering the endogenous issue of the number of siblings,the conclusion is still sound.And relative to men and urban areas,the number of siblings will have a stronger impact on women and rural areas.(2)From the perspective of family gender structure,the impact of the number of brothers and sisters on intergenerational mobility is significantly negative and the effect of brothers on family resources is greater;From the perspective of family age structure,the increase of the number of elder brothers,younger brothers,elder sisters and younger sisters will hinder the intergenerational mobility of individuals to some extent,and there is acertain difference in the degree of influence of sibling age structure,and the influence of elder sisters and younger sisters on intergenerational mobility in the family is less than that of elder brothers and younger brothers.The influence of family structure on intergenerational mobility also differs between different genders and between urban and rural areas.In short,when we study the issue of intergenerational mobility,we cannot ignore the influence of family factors.In the context of the implementation of the comprehensive two-child policy in China,the government should increase investment in education and increase the supply of educational resources to ensure the quality of children.At the same time,considering the disadvantaged position of women in the competition for family resources,the traditional Chinese concept of "putting men before women" should be further transformed,and discrimination against women in the labor market should be eased to provide more development opportunities for women.