The impact of sibling size on children’s academic performance; a case study of female high school students in Tehran

ABSTRACT

The present study addressed the relationship between sibling size and children’s academic performance. One common scientific and cultural belief is that children’s academic performance declines with the increase in sibling size. However, this belief has not been subjected to empirical research in Iran. The data were collected by electronic questionnaire from 493 secondary high school female students in Tehran. The results revealed sibling size had a weak and negative relationship with the students’ academic performance. However, this relationship lost its significance after controlling for some intervening variables. As a result, it can be argued that increasing the sibling size alone does not affect the academic performance. The multiple regression indicated that the intervening variables of self-efficacy, self-esteem, time spent with parents, and school type – public or non-profit – affect academic performance. This means that instead of the number of children, policymakers should focus on modifying these effective intervening variables.

KEYWORDS:

• Academic performance
• sibling size
• population policy
• self-efficacy
• self-esteem
• school type

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Masood Alamineisi

Dr. Masood Alamineisi is an assistant professor of social policy of the Department of Cooperation and Social Welfare at Allameh Tabatabai University,Tehran, Iran. He is the head of National Institute of Population Research (NIPR), Tehran, Iran. He received his PhD in Sociology of Economy and Development from Tehran University. His research interests are in social policy, crime policy, population & development policy, and he has numerous books and articles in this fields; i.e. the two books “Institutional Analysis of Crime in Iran” and “Perspectives of Iranian Tendencies in the Next Decade” in Persian. Also, his latest important research was “Evaluation of General Population Policies [in Iran]”, which was conducted for the “Secretariat of the Expediency Discernment Council” and evaluates the implementation of general population policies in Iran. For about 17 years, he has been an expert or consultant in various organizations such as the “Research Centre of the Islamic Consultative Assembly”, “Centre for Progress and Development of Iran”, “Centre for Coordination and Development of Quranic Research and Higher Education” and “Technology Studies Institute”.

Fateme Vakili Sadeghi

Fateme Vakili Sadeghi is a graduate of Master of Social Welfare Planning, Faculty of Social Sciences, Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran, Iran. Her research interest is in population and education policies.