Intra-household allocation of family resources and birth order: evidence from France using siblings data

We examine the effect of birth order on education, occupation, and parental transfers using four cross sections of the French Wealth surveys conducted between 1992 and 2010. Estimates from ordered models confirm the presence of a first born advantage in education and occupation, the latter persisting to a lesser extent after controlling for education. Strikingly, parents are on average more likely to make transfers to first-born children, although the vast majority provides cash or property gifts to all of their children. This first-born advantage in transfers is uncorrelated with the likelihood of having attained a higher education or better occupation. Overall, our findings suggest that in France, the mechanism supporting the first born advantage may not stem from confluence effects or family resource dilution.