地位達成と家族

キョウダイの教育達成を中心に

抄録

The family into which an individual is born exerts a significant influence on his/her life opportunity. In status attainment research, such influence is widely discussed in terms of family background and its effect on educational or occupational careers has been analyzed. While many studies reported a gradual decline in the importance of the family, various aspects of family life remained unexamined because of a scarcity of data. One such aspect is sibling conditions.
This paper examines the association of sibling-size and birth order with educational attainment. An interesting question is whether the low fertility that has prevailed in postwar Japan changes the pattern of educational attainment of siblings. Using SSM data collected in 1985, I found there was an inverse correlation between sibling-size and educational attainment as had been the case in the past, the birth-order effect becoming greater in recent cohorts. Even in a small and equality-oriented family, educational resources are inevitably allocated unevenly between offspring. We need to include in our research on stratification perspectives to examine both between-family and within-family variations.