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Family size and children’s education in Vietnam

  • Mothers and Children
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Demography

Abstract

Data from the nationally representative 1994 Inter-Censal Demographic Survey are used to examine the association between family size and children s schooling in Vietnam. The data provide information on several education measures for all children over age 10, including children no longer residing in the household. Although a clear inverse bivariate association between family size and children s school attendance and educational attainment is evident, multivariate analysis controlling for urban/rural residence, region, parents’ education, household wealth, and child’s age, reveals that much of this association, especially that predicting educational attainment, is attributable to these other influences. Moreover, much of the effect that remains after statistical adjustment for the other influences is seen mainly at the largest family sizes. We consider the implications of these findings for current population policy in Vietnam and the possible features of the Vietnamese context that might account for the modest association.

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Prepared for presentation at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America, New Orleans, May 1996. This research was supported by NIH Grant 043 TW/H000657 from the Fogarty International Center and NICHD to the Population Studies Center of the University of Michigan, “Determinants of Fertility Preferences in Southeast Asia.” Earlier assistance from the United Nations Population Fund Project VIE/93/03 facilitated this research.

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Anh, T.S., Knodel, J., Lam, D. et al. Family size and children’s education in Vietnam. Demography 35, 57–70 (1998). https://doi.org/10.2307/3004027

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