Birth Order, Child Labor and Schooling: Theory and Evidence from Cameroon

This paper examines the determinants of schooling in developing countries with a special emphasis on birth order effect. We present a theoretical model accounting for the dynamics of birth order and its interaction with credit constraints. We show that since elder children are the only source of additional income when constraints get tighter in poor families, they work more than their younger siblings and end up with lower levels of education. This discrimination is not at work among wealthier families. We test these predictions on the 2001 LSMS Cameroon Household Survey. Controlling for household fixed effects, gender and age, our results confirm that earlier-born children's education levels are relatively lower in poor households, and not in richer ones. These results are robust to various measures of birth order and household wealth.