Consolidating Success: Assessing Recent Trends in Sibling Similarities in Educational Attainment

• In Event: Millennium Hotel Roundtable Session 13
  In Roundtable Session: How Parents and Families Navigate Educational Contexts

Abstract

Using sibling data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and multi-level models, this paper calculate intra-class correlation coefficients for groups of siblings from contiguous birth cohorts to show that sibling correlations in years of education increased in the second half of the twentieth century. Additionally, the paper presents calculations of the joint probability of two siblings within a family both attaining a particular level of education and attending a selective college. Findings show that families of higher SES hold an advantage in securing higher levels of education for their children in comparison with families of lower SES. Furthermore, pairs of siblings from advantaged backgrounds hold a greater likelihood of both accessing a selective college education.

Author

• Jason Thompson