家庭子女数量对儿童教育过程的影响--基于教育投资稀释效应的分析

The Impacts of Sibling Size on Children’s Education——Analysis Based on Resource Dilution Effect

家庭生育子女的数量和质量存在替代性的关系。随着生育政策的放松,有不少家庭会生育更多的子女,这会造成多子女家庭教育投资的稀释并扩大教育的不平等,扩大儿童未来教育获得和社会经济地位的不平等。研究发现:更多的兄弟姐妹数量会减少儿童获得的家庭教育投资,这种教育资源稀释效应对女孩影响更大,对非农户籍人群、较高收入家庭的影响更大。教育期望是影响家庭教育投资的中介机制,更多的兄弟姐妹降低了父母对孩子的教育期望并在一定程度上使教育投资有所减少。进一步研究表明兄弟姐妹数量多对孩子的学业成绩、升学机会具有不利影响,这种不利影响部分是由教育投资的稀释效应导致的。在教育储蓄、父母对儿童教育发展的未来打算与对子女教育的关注等不同方面,家庭中子女数量更多都表现出不利的作用。此外,兄弟姐妹数量对儿童教育投资的稀释作用在儿童早期和学龄前就开始显现,这对儿童长期性的发展成长会产生持续性的影响。为了避免家庭生育变化对儿童教育发展的不利影响,需要在调整生育政策的同时完善教育政策,重视儿童的教育发展。积极探索公共部门和社会部门的应对策略。

There is a substitute relationship between the quantity and quality of children in a family.With the relaxation of the fertility policy,many families would have more children,that will dilute the investment in education in these families and widen the inequality in education among different families,as well as the inequality in children’s future educational attainment and social and economic status.Having more siblings reduces children’s educational investment acquisition.This dilution effect is larger for girls,non-agricultural hukou population,and higher income households.Educational expectation plays significant mediate effects in this process,that is,parents will reduce educational expectations of their children if they had more children,and thus lead to the decrease of educational investment.Furthermore,a bigger sibling size has negative impacts on children’s academic performance and chances of going to higher level schools,which could be partly explained by the resource dilution effect.Besides obtaining lower educational expenditure from their parents,children with more siblings also have a lower probability of having educational savings or studying abroad,and generally receive less attention from their parents.Moreover,the dilutive effect of investment in children’s education occurs in early childhood and has a lasting impact on children’s longterm development.In order to avoid the adverse impact of fertility changes to children’s education,it is necessary to improve public education investment,to strengthen social donations on education,and to adjust and improve related educational policies.