WHEN BIGGER IS NOT BETTER - FAMILY-SIZE, PARENTAL RESOURCES, AND CHILDRENS EDUCATIONAL PERFORMANCE
WHEN BIGGER IS NOT BETTER - FAMILY-SIZE, PARENTAL RESOURCES, AND CHILDRENS EDUCATIONAL PERFORMANCE
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DOI：
10.2307/2096320
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发表时间：
1995-10-01
影响因子：
9.1
通讯作者：
DOWNEY, DB
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
DOWNEY, DB
尽管兄弟姐妹的数量和孩子的教育成绩之间的负相关关系已经得到了很好的证实，但对这种关系的解释仍然很原始。一种解释是资源稀释，认为父母的资源(时间、精力、金钱等)是有限的。随着兄弟姐妹关系规模的扩大，这些资源在儿童中被稀释。与之前的研究相比，我对稀释模型进行了更严格的调查，以1988年国家教育纵向研究中的24599名八年级学生为样本，测试了该模型的含义。我的分析从三个方面支持资源稀释模型。首先，扣除控制因素，父母资源的可获得性随着兄弟姐妹数量的增加而减少。然而，这种关系的功能形式并不总是线性的，取决于资源是人际资源还是经济资源。其次，父母资源解释了兄弟姐妹关系大小与教育结果之间的大部分或全部反向关系。最后，兄弟姐妹规模和父母资源之间的交互作用支持稀释模型，因为当子女有多个兄弟姐妹而不是几个兄弟姐妹时，他们从某些父母资源中受益较少。
Although the inverse relationship between the number of siblings and children's educational performance has been well established, explanations for this relationship remain primitive. One explanation, resource dilution, posits that parents have finite levels of resources (time, energy, money, etc.) and that these resources are diluted among children as sibship size increases. I provide a more rigorous investigation of the dilution model than previous studies, testing its implications with a sample of 24,599 eighth graders from the 1988 National Education Longitudinal Study. My analyses support the resource dilution model in three ways. First, the availability of parental resources decreases as the number of siblings increases, net of controls. The functional form of this relationship is not always linear, however and depends on whether the resource is interpersonal or economic. Second, parental resources explain most or all of the inverse relationship between sibship size and educational outcomes. Finally, interactions between sibship size and parental resources support the dilution model as children benefit less from certain parental resources when they have many versus few siblings.