The Effect of Family Structure on Siblings' Status Achievement: the Case of Taiwan.

This study investigates the determinants of status achievements in education and occupation, focusing on status-relevant consequences of differential fertility. Specifically, an analysis is conducted of the relationship between family structure and children's status achievement in Taiwan, a country undergoing rapid social change. Using path analysis, this study attempts to measure the magnitude and direction of the influences of family structure and background variables on children's status achievements and to explain the mechanisms involved. Applying multi-level analysis, this study tries to systematize the nature of the dependence of siblings' status achievement on the family. Employing analysis of variance, this study produces an intraclass correlation to measure the degree of resemblance among siblings on education and occupation. The path analysis indicates that the relationship between family size and children's education varies from one age cohort to another and is significant only for children below age 35. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that the trade-off between quality and quantity of children varies with the stage of social change. Father's education and children's age are found to be the most important predictors of children's education; while the effect of the proportion of male siblings in the family on children's education varies by sex and age cohort. Mean birth interval and birth order are also found to significantly affect children's education. Education is the most important predictor for occupational status of employed males and variables of social origins are found to influence occupational status in an indirect manner through education. The results of multi-level analysis indicate that family exerts much greater effect on siblings' status achievements than do personal characteristics. About onel-half of the variance explained by family membership can be accounted for by a set of simple family background variables. Within each size sibling group, siblings show a substantial degree of resemblance in education and occupational status. Intraclass correlation measured by the family factor is substantially larger than that measured by the birth order. Overall, the family structure and background variables explain only a small proportion of variance in the level of homogeneity from one sibling group to another.PhDDemographyUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/158763/1/8204788.pd