000			02211nam a22001457a 4500
999			_c525527 _d525527
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100			_aYu, Wei-hsin and Yan, Hope Xu _950309
245			_aEffects of siblings on cognitive and sociobehavioral development: Ongoing debates and new theoretical insights
260			_aAmerican Sociological Review
300			_a88(6), Dec, 2023: p.1002-1030
520			_aDespite social scientists’ long-standing interest in the influences of siblings, previous research has not settled the debates on how relevant sibship size is to child development and whether growing up with more siblings could be beneficial. Using 30 years of longitudinal data and fixed-effects models, this study offers the most comprehensive evidence on how sibship size is tied to cognitive and sociobehavioral development. We also advance the literature by systematically comparing the consequences of gaining a sibling for children with varying ordinal positions. Contrary to prior studies using selective data from limited observation spans, we find that children experience net decreases in cognitive test scores as their family size grows. At the same time, our analysis shows that sibling additions are only important to first- and second-born children’s—not later-born children’s—cognitive development. Even for the first- and second-born, the marginal effect of adding a sibling lessens with each addition. Our results thus demonstrate the time-dependent nature of family resource-dilution processes. For sociobehavioral development, the evidence indicates that having an older sibling is beneficial, but gaining a younger sibling increases behavioral problems for some (e.g., first-born children). Because more children from large families have older siblings, children from larger families exhibit less problematic behavior, on average. By uncovering the complex relationship between siblings and noncognitive development, this study also generally contributes to the sociology of family and inequality. – Reproduced https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00031224231210258
773			_aAmerican Sociological Review
906			_aCHILD WELFARE
942			_cAR