First-born child 'achieves more'

The research is the first to use such a large data-set

First-born children are likely to be more successful at school than their younger siblings, a study suggests.

The eldest child will spend one year more in education than the third-born child, Norwegian research has claimed.

Later-born children will earn less, are less likely to work full-time, and females are more likely to be teenage mothers, it was suggested.

The researchers looked at everyone in Norway who was aged between 16 and 74 at some point between 1986 to 2000.

Advantages

Professor Kjell Salvanes, who led the research, said there was already a large amount of psychological literature on why first-born children were more successful.

If resources are limited the parents may invest more time and money in the eldest child Prof Salvanes

He said: "The main suggestion is that the eldest child acts as a teacher for the younger children and learns how to organise information and present it to others."

He said these skills put them at an advantage both at school and in the labour market.

"But there could, of course, be different types of expectations from the parents and if resources are limited the parents may invest more time and money in the eldest child," he added.

Prof Salvanes, of the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, carried out the research with colleagues from the United States.

Norway's personal identity number system allowed them to look within families to distinguish the effect of family size on a child's education.

Family size

The researchers said it is the first study of its kind and has produced a more accurate picture by using such a large data-set.

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Previous studies have suggested children from larger families did not reach the same level of academic achievement as children from smaller families.

But the Norwegian research suggested there was no correlation with family size.

Prof Salvanes was due to present his paper, The Effect of Family Composition on Children's Education, at the World Congress of the Econometric Society in London on Monday.