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Money and Success –Sibling and Birth-Order Effects on Positional Concerns

Author

Listed:
  • Lampi, Elina

    (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University)

  • Nordblom, Katarina

    (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University)

Abstract
Survey data is used to investigate how birth order and having siblings affect positional concerns in terms of success at work and of income. We find that only-children are the most concerned with relative position, but that number of siblings increases the concern among those who grew up together with siblings. Furthermore, people whose parents often compared them with their siblings have stronger positional concerns in general. We find differences depending on whether the issue is relative income or relative successfulness, and that people generally have stronger positional concern in relation to friends, but less so in relation to parents and least in relation to siblings. We also find that younger respondents are far more concerned with relative position than older in all studied situations.

Suggested Citation

  • Lampi, Elina & Nordblom, Katarina, 2008. "Money and Success –Sibling and Birth-Order Effects on Positional Concerns," Working Papers in Economics 299, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0299
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2077/9989
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    Cited by:

    1. Lampi, Elina & Nordblom, Katarina, 2010. "Money and success - Sibling and birth-order effects on positional concerns," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 131-142, February.
    2. Honghui Li & Masato Hiwatari, 2024. "Unveiling the direct and indirect effects of sibling size on happiness: evidence from adults in early and mid-adulthood in China," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-12, December.
    3. Alpaslan Akay & Gökhan Karabulut & Peter Martinsson, 2013. "The effect of religiosity and religious festivals on positional concerns -- an experimental investigation of Ramadan," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(27), pages 3914-3921, September.
    4. Kuba, Radim & Flegr, Jaroslav & Havlíček, Jan, 2018. "The effect of birth order on the probability of university enrolment," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 61-72.
    5. Warren, John Robert & Knies, Laurie & Haas, Steven & Hernandez, Elaine M., 2012. "The impact of childhood sickness on adult socioeconomic outcomes: Evidence from late 19th century America," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(8), pages 1531-1538.
    6. Eiji Yamamura, 2015. "Effects of Siblings and Birth Order on Income Redistribution Preferences: Evidence Based on Japanese General Social Survey," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 121(2), pages 589-606, April.
    7. Kirsten Häger & Bastian Oud & Daniel Schunk, 2012. "Egalitarian Envy: Cross-cultural Variation in the Development of Envy in Children," Jena Economics Research Papers 2012-059, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    8. Adam Ayaita & Kerstin Pull, 2022. "Positional preferences and narcissism: evidence from ‘money burning’ dictator games," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(3), pages 267-271, February.
    9. Carlsson, Fredrik & Lampi, Elina & Martinsson, Peter & Tu, Qin & Yang, Xiaojun, 2018. "Long-run effects of family policies: An experimental study of the Chinese one-child policy," Working Papers in Economics 732, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    10. Bogaerts, Tess & Pandelaere, Mario, 2013. "Less is more: Why some domains are more positional than others," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 225-236.
    11. Yamamura, Eiji, 2012. "Effects of siblings and birth order on income redistribution preferences," MPRA Paper 38658, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    birth order; positional concern; only child; relative income; siblings;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

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