Economic Analysis of the Effect of Family Size on Educational Achievement of Children

Abstract

The trade-off between the quantity and quality of children is one of the topics in family economics with crucial implications in fertility and determination of family size. This paper aims to answer this question: does educational quality of children decrease due to increase in the number of children of a typical family? The microeconomic analysis of this matter implies the existence of such trade-off. This analysis confirms that the rising price of demand for child due to the increase in women’s education level leads to the lower quantity but higher quality of children. The results based on 1294 observations from primary school students in Tehran show that an increase in family size leads to a statistically significant fall in average scores as an educational measure and math point as talent measure of students. Additionally, it is shown that women’s employment has negative effect on educational achievement of their children, while higher parental schooling and family income lead to better educational performance of them. How to feed children is the other interfamily feature, which helps to develop mental ability of children.

Keywords

• quantity
• quality
• children
• education