This paper examines the effects of sibship composition and birth order on the school enrolment and educational attainment of children, using data from the Vietnam Population and Housing Census 2009. Utilizing an instrumental variable estimation method to address the endogeneity of sibship size, we find that it has a significant, negative effect on child education. Examining the impact of sibling sex composition, we find that having an additional boy lowers children’s average educational attainment for both girls and boys. We establish that birth order has a significant, negative effect on child educational attainment, although that effect seems to vanish with the youngest sibling. Our findings have several policy implications. First, the negative effect of sibship size on education implies that Vietnam’s lower fertility rate, the result of family planning policy during the 1990s and 2000s, may contribute to its remarkable educational achievements. Second, we find that birth order and sibling sex composition are more important than sibship size in children’s educational outcomes. As parents disproportionately allocate more resources for boys and earlier born children, government-targeted programs should tackle those issues to provide equal school opportunities for all children.

本文使用 2009 年越南人口和住房普查的数据，研究了同胞构成和出生顺序对儿童入学率和教育程度的影响。利用工具变量估计方法来解决同胞规模的内生性，我们发现它对孩子的教育有很大的负面影响。检查兄弟姐妹性别构成的影响，我们发现多生一个男孩会降低女孩和男孩的平均教育程度。我们确定出生顺序对儿童的教育程度有显着的负面影响，尽管这种影响似乎随着最小的兄弟姐妹而消失。我们的发现有几个政策含义。首先，同胞规模对教育的负面影响意味着越南的生育率较低，1990年代和2000年代计划生育政策的结果，可能有助于其显着的教育成就。其次，我们发现出生顺序和兄弟姐妹性别构成在儿童教育成果中比兄弟姐妹大小更重要。由于父母不成比例地为男孩和早产儿分配更多资源，政府针对性计划应解决这些问题，为所有儿童提供平等的上学机会。