Educational consequences of a sibling's disability: Evidence from type 1 diabetes

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

  • Tine L.Mundbjerg Eriksen
  • Amanda P. Gaulke
  • Niels Skipper
  • Svensson, Jannet
  • Peter Thingholm

While there is a growing literature on family health spillovers, questions remain about how sibling disability status impacts educational outcomes. As disability is not randomly assigned this is an empirical challenge. In this paper we use Danish administrative data and variation in the onset of type 1 diabetes to compare education outcomes of focal children with a disabled sibling to outcomes of focal children without a disabled sibling (matched on date of birth of the focal child, sibling spacing and family size). We find that having a disabled sibling significantly decreases 9th grade exit exam GPAs, while having no impact on on-time completion of 9th grade. However, educational trajectories are impacted, as we find significant decreases in high school enrollment and significant increases in vocational school enrollment by age 18. Our results indicate that sibling disability status can generate economically meaningful inequality in educational outcomes.

Original languageEnglish
Article number102407
JournalEconomics of Education Review
Volume94
Number of pages13
ISSN0272-7757
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Elsevier Ltd

    Research areas

  • Diabetes, Educational performance, Health, SES, Sibling spillovers

ID: 366004182