Number of children in a household and child well-being

Resumo

The quantity/quality tradeoff argument in explaining fertility decline has focused on the association between more education among children and fewer siblings. Human capital formation is also related to other dimensions of well-being. The goal of this analysis is to perform cross-national comparisons on the association between the number of children in a household and three measures related to child well-being: being harshly disciplined, mildly disciplined and child labor. The analysis is based on logistic regressions estimated using the Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey (MICS) datasets of 24 nations grouped into four regions. At the micro level, there is a direct association between families having more children and both the odds of children working and the odds of children being harshly disciplined, but the association is weak for mild discipline. In general, the associations found at the micro level reflect the findings that countries with higher fertility have also higher proportions of children working or being harshly disciplined.