Resource Dilution Hypothesis Research Articles

Supporting One’s Own? Grandparents’ Help to Grandchildren Who Live With Other Unrelated Children

The structures of young families today are becoming increasingly complex, which may impact grandparents’ involvement. I examine whether grandparents’ support to adult children’s households differs for those with biological grandchildren only, versus households with both biological and non-biological (step, unrelated) grandchildren. The resource dilution hypothesis and sociobiology theory suggest that grandparents will be less supportive of grandchildren when other unrelated children co-reside in their households. Grandparents (mean age 62.23) in the Add Health Parent Study (2015-2017) reported on instrumental and financial help given to each of their adult children's families in the past year. These data were merged with information from their adult children (mean age 36.76) who participated in Add Health Wave V (2016-2018). Adult children’s household structures—biological children only (n=400) or biological + other children (n=51)—were determined using their fertility histories and household rosters. No significant differences were found in the likelihood that grandparents offered any instrumental or financial support to these two household types (controlling for grandparent resources and adult child characteristics). Nor was the level of grandparents’ financial support significantly different for the two groups. However, grandparents gave significantly fewer hours of help to adult children heading households including both biological grandchildren and unrelated children. Grandparents appear less willing to devote time to assisting their grandchildren’s families when their investment is diluted by the presence of unrelated children. Perhaps time with grandchildren is less pleasing or comfortable when unrelated children are present. This same issue does not impact financial giving, which need not involve contact.

Rethinking the Fertility Transition in Rural Aragón (Spain) Using Height Data.

Based on an analysis of the life trajectories of 2510 conscripts and their families from a Spanish rural area in the period 1835–1977, this paper studies the development of the fertility transition in relation to height using bivariate analyses. The use of heights is an innovative perspective of delving into the fertility transition and social transformation entailed. The results confirm that the men with a low level of biological well-being (related to low socio-economic groups) were those who started to control their fertility, perhaps due to the effect that increased average family size had on their budget. The children of individuals who controlled their fertility were taller than the children of other families. Therefore, the children of parents who controlled their fertility experienced the largest intergenerational increase in height (approximately 50% higher). This increase could be due to the consequence of a greater investment in children (Becker’s hypothesis) or a greater availability of resources for the whole family (resource dilution hypothesis).

The Dilution of Parents’ Nonmaterial Resources in Stepfamilies: The Role of Complex Sibling Configurations in Parental Involvement

Abstract It has been argued that an increase in the number of siblings means that there are fewer parental investments made per child (resource dilution hypothesis). Yet, these studies are mostly based on biological two-parent families in which it can be assumed that parental resources are distributed more or less equally across siblings. This assumption does not hold in the complex family structure of a stepfamily where not all siblings are biologically related and living in the same household. Since more and more children are growing up in stepfamilies, a distinction between sibling types (full/half/step) is needed. In this study, we focus on the dilution of nonmaterial resources (i.e., parental involvement) and use the OKiN dataset to examine paternal (n = 1,077) and maternal (n = 1,369) resources separately. In this way, this study provides the first comprehensive overview of the dilution of parental resources in stepfamilies. While maternal resources are mostly diluted by full siblings, paternal resources are diluted by all sibling types (full, half, and step). We reflect on the implications of these results for the literature on sibship size as well as the literature on social mobility.

Spatial and temporal patterns of a pulsed resource dynamically drive the distribution of specialist herbivores

Patterns and drivers of the spatio-temporal distribution of herbivores are key elements of their ecological and evolutionary impacts on plant populations. Herbivore spatial distributions may be influenced by increased (RCH: resource concentration hypothesis) or decreased (RDH: resource dilution hypothesis) resource densities, but the effect of temporal variations in resource densities on such distributions remains poorly documented. We used a survey of a masting tree species and its seed predators in Southeastern France to address the effect of a host’s pulsed resource on the spatio-temporal distributions of highly specialized insect herbivores feeding on seeds. Variations in both resource and seed predator densities were assessed by estimating seed production and seed infestation rates in focus trees during 10 consecutive years. We found increasing seed infestation rates with decreasing host tree densities in years of low seed production, indicating a RDH pattern of seed predators. However, such pattern was not persistent in years of high seed production during which seed infestation rates did not depend on host tree densities. We showed that temporal variations in resource density can lead to transience of seed predator spatial distribution. This study highlights how predictions of plant-herbivore interactions in natural ecosystems may rely on temporal components underlying RCH and RDH hypotheses.

Intergenerational Exchange of Support in Low‐Income Families: Understanding Resource Dilution and Increased Contribution

Objective: This study examines the resource dilution hypothesis during the transition to adulthood, when parental support is both more optional and more contested, and when children may not only receive but also provide support to their families.Background: Prior sociological literature on the investment of family resources and the role of siblings has typically focused on younger children in compulsory schooling. It is not clear whether the patterns observed among young children hold across other stages of the life course.Method: The study is based on a sample of 740 low‐income students attending seven public 4‐year institutions in Wisconsin. Regression analyses examine the extent to which students receive financial, emotional, and in‐kind support from their families as well as the extent to which they provide those types of supports to their families.Results: The results indicate that siblings dilute financial support low‐income students receive from their families, but not emotional or in‐kind support. Notably, siblings do not only dilute financial resources; they also invite increased contributions. Low‐income young adults receive less financial support and provide more financial and in‐kind support in larger families.Conclusion: The findings imply the importance of revising the resource dilution hypothesis to reflect variation across different stages of the life course and to account for the bidirectional exchange of support.

Testing the conditional resource-dilution hypothesis: the impact of sibship size and composition on infant and child mortality in the Netherlands, 1863–1910

ABSTRACTChild survival depends on the allocation of resources within the household. The size and composition of the sibling set influences parental division of resources and can in turn affect survival chances. In spite of recent advances in research on sibling effects, previous studies have often used the resource dilution hypothesis, which neglects the specific historical context which shapes household structure and organisation. This study therefore focuses specifically on the variation in historical context by examining sibling effects on infant and child mortality in three regions of the Netherlands in the period 1863–1910. It does so by connecting the gendered and the conditional resource-dilution model with each other as a conceptual framework. Changing household composition is taken into account by using longitudinal data from the Historical Sample of the Netherlands, time-varying variables and Cox proportional-hazard models to study sibling size and composition. The results show that the number and gender of siblings play an important role in determining child mortality, but are less significant in determining infant mortality. The number of same-sex siblings has a negative impact on boys’ survival chances in the Netherlands, which suggests that after the age of one, boys experienced more competition from their brothers. The reason for this could be their assigned roles within the household and on the family farm. A negative influence of the number of sisters is only found for child mortality chances for girls in the nuclear northwest family region. Here, fewer children were needed to work inside or outside the household, and girls and boys may even have been interchangeable. The results underscore the importance of looking at the interaction between the specific historical context and gender when trying to understand how sibship size and composition influenced children’s mortality risks and shaped inequality within the household.

Siblings and life transitions: investigating the resource dilution hypothesis across historical contexts and outcomes

ABSTRACTThis special section contains a collection of articles that study how children are affected by their sibship size and composition by examining their influence on several demographic outcomes across time and space. The importance of the specific historical context, as put forward by the conditional or gendered resource dilution model, seems to be justified, as inheritance practices and gender preferences were determining demographic outcomes.While these studies provide us with the possibility of reflecting on what kinds of pathways/mechanisms are behind sibling effects, they also demonstrate that much more can and should be investigated.Four recommendations for future studies are formulated: (1) future studies should continue on the same path as the articles in this special section and address different outcomes in a variety of contexts to determine under which conditions siblings matter for life transitions and demographic outcomes; (2) theoretical frameworks from different disciplines should be integrated to increase knowledge exchange; (3) researchers should think more about, and be transparent about, how siblings and families are defined; and (4) qualitative studies should be included to a greater extent, since quantitative studies alone cannot answer the questions we have about how and why sibling effects influence life transations and outcomes.

Anthropometric traits at military medical examinations associated with demographic family characteristics in Sardinia at the turn of twentieth century

Anthropometric traits observed during military medical examinations are excellent indicators of individual health and nutritional status, and more generally reflect historical socio-economic conditions. Historical demographers have shown little interest in the association of anthropometric traits with demographic family characteristics, except with sibship size according to the resource dilution hypothesis (RDH). In this study we present an analysis of both height and chest circumference of conscripts of Villagrande in Sardinia, Italy, born between 1853 and 1935. Among a total of 1499 conscripts who passed their first examination, height and chest circumference were recorded respectively for 1432 and 1253 conscripts. These traits were almost normally distributed around the average height of 157.60 cm and chest circumference of 81.89 cm. A multivariate regression analysis was performed using height or chest circumference as dependent variables and a set of demographic variables as potentially explanatory factors. The strongest explanatory power was observed for the year of birth indicating a significant secular increase, for conscript’s age at the first medical examination and the maternal age at conscript’s birth. The mortality rate under age five within the sibship shows a negative association with height only, whereas neither parity nor intergenesic intervals show any statistically significant impact. Finally, the relative birth index is associated with the chest circumference only, with larger values for conscripts born within the younger half of the sibship. Overall, our findings are consistent with the general statement that height and chest circumference are largely under genetic control although they may be partially modulated by the environmental and socio-economic conditions of the individual’s life. This study also aimed to test RDH. Although conscripts who were an only child may have had a slight increase in height and chest circumference, no significant negative linear or log-linear trend was detected for the two body parameters in respect of sibship size.

The relationship between family characteristics and height in Sardinia at the turn of the twentieth century

This paper is intended as a contribution to the debate on the determinants of physical stature in the past and it specifically investigates whether, in Sardinia, height − considered as a proxy of the share of household resources allocated to a child’s growth − was influenced by the number of brothers and sisters amongst whom parents had to distribute available resources. This study is limited to the male population, because military records represent the only source at our disposal providing historical data on height. The community studied is the town of Alghero, located on the north-western coast of Sardinia, at the turn of the twentieth century. We have adopted a longitudinal approach, thanks to the rich dataset reconstructed for Alghero, using different sources including family, socioeconomic and anthropometric indicators. The results, in line with the resource dilution hypothesis, show that competition within the household was of some importance and that the effects on height due to scarcity of resources were particularly evident amongst farmers, the most representative socioeconomic status group in Alghero. A significant contribution to the stature reached in adulthood was also given by the socioeconomic status of the family or else by other individual characteristics.

The Effect of Sibling Size on Children’s Health and Education: Is there a Quantity-Quality Trade-off?

ABSTRACTThe quantity-quality trade-off is one important motivation for the family planning policies in many developing countries. In this paper, we examine the effect of number of siblings on children’s health and education in China. We find evidence of quantity-quality trade-off in children’s health but not in children’s education. Our study has three contributions. First, we focus not only on children’s education but also on children’s health, which has received rather little attention in the literature. Secondly, we use a new source of exogenous variation in fertility – variations of the strictness of the One-Child policy across localities in China – to construct instrumental variable's (IV's). Finally, we empirically explore the underlying mechanism of the quantity-quality trade-off, and find supporting evidence for the resource dilution hypothesis.

Birth order and height development in early childhood: empirical evidence for twenty-first-century Flanders

Height is generally accepted as an indicator of well-being and the development of children in early childhood. Historical research shows a negative association between the height of individuals and their birth order. This is frequently explained by the resource dilution hypothesis. However, we question the negative effect of birth order on growth patterns in contemporary Flanders, where the fertility decline has stabilized and policies supporting the family are well established. Therefore, the first aim of this study is to examine the influence of birth order on early child development – in terms of height – in contemporary society. In addition, we control for socioeconomic and sociodemographic parameters. We use a longitudinal dataset of almost all births in Flanders between 2006 and 2009 (N = 291,230), together with check-ups (N = 2,949,169). All height measurements are standardized to conform to the international World Health Organization growth standards. Several statistical techniques are used to estimate a six-step model. Results show that the effects of birth order are significant at the 5% level, but explain very little of the variation in height increase. This contribution improves the understanding of the present-day link between birth order and early child development in contemporary Flanders. In light of historical trends, our results indicate that the effect of birth order is consistent but particularly small during the first three years of early childhood. Part of the explanation for the changing role of birth order at the macro level can be found in the fertility decline, the general improvement in standards of living and the development of the welfare state.

Family size, cognitive outcomes, and familial interaction in stable, two-parent families: United States, 1997-2002.

Measures of children's time use, particularly with parents and siblings, are used to evaluate three hypotheses in relation to the vocabulary and mathematical skills development: (1) the resource dilution hypothesis, which argues that parental and household resources are diluted in larger families; (2) the confluence hypothesis, which suggests that the intellectual milieu of families is lowered with additional children; and (3) the admixture ("no effect") hypothesis, which suggests that the negative relationship between family size and achievement is an artifact of cross-sectional research resulting from unobserved heterogeneity. Each hypothesis is tested using within-child estimates of change in cognitive scores over time with the addition of new children to families.

Factors affecting the survival of ash (Fraxinus spp.) trees infested by emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis)

Emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis) (EAB), an Asian woodboring beetle accidentally introduced in North America, has killed millions of ash (Fraxinus spp.) trees and is spreading rapidly. This study examined the effects of tree- and site-level factors on the mortality of ash trees in stands infested by EAB in OH, USA. Our data show that ash populations in forested sites can progress from healthy to almost complete mortality of mature trees within 6 years. Although the end result of nearly complete mortality does not vary, survival analysis with 5 years of data showed that some factors affected the rate of mortality. We found more rapid mortality in stands with lower densities of ash trees. This finding supports an extension of the resource dilution hypothesis whereby concentration of EAB on few trees in low ash density areas leads to rapid decline of these trees. This contradicts an extension of the resource concentration theory that greater host density increases relative pest abundance and host mortality. Although reductions in ash density via diversification may be desirable for other silvicultural, conservation, and management objectives in preparation for EAB, our study shows that the management strategy of reducing ash density is unlikely to protect the remaining ash trees. Survival analysis also showed that mortality was more rapid for trees shaded by other trees and for trees initially exhibiting dieback. In management scenarios where hazard tree removal must be spread over several years due to budget constraints, focusing initial tree removal on stressed trees is recommended.

Family size and intergenerational social mobility during the fertility transition

Abstract It has been argued in sociology, economics, and evolutionary anthropology that family size limitation enhances the intergenerational upward mobility chances in modernized societies. If parents have a large flock, family resources get diluted and intergenerational mobility is bound to head downwards. Yet, the empirical record supporting this resource dilution hypothesis is limited. This article investigates the empirical association between family size limitation and intergenerational mobility in an urban, late nineteenth century population in Western Europe. It uses life course data from the Belgian city of Antwerp between 1846 and 1920. Findings are consistent with the resource dilution hypothesis: after controlling for confounding factors, people with many children were more likely to end up in the lower classes. Yet, family size limitation was effective as a defensive rather than an offensive strategy: it prevented the next generation from going down rather than helping them to climb up the social ladder. Also, family size appears to have been particularly relevant for the middle classes. Implications for demographic transition theory are discussed. 1. Resource dilution and decline In his 1890 classic Depopulation et civilisation, the French social scientist Arsene Dumont argued that adults with ambition tend to limit their family size because numerous offspring are an obstacle to success and achievement. For people who want to rise socially, he wrote, many children make inconvenient luggage (Dumont 1890(1990):77). The same holds for those who project their ambitions onto their children: numerous offspring dilute parental resources and therefore complicates or aggravates the social situation in the next generation (Dumont 1890(1990):73-91). Philippe Aries (1980), referring to Dumont, argued in an article amply cited by demographers (Dalla Zuanna 2007) that the decline of in the West is the consequence of the emergence of a child-oriented society. In such a society, parents' main investment consists of helping their children to get ahead. In the English-speaking world, Joseph A. Banks' Prosperity and Parenthood (1954) was instrumental in spreading the same ideas. Banks, who explicitly referred to Dumont's work, argued that social ambition was one of the motivating forces for family size limitation in the English middle classes. In economics, the negative effect of family size on the future social status of children, due to resource dilution, is known under the heading of the quality-quantity trade-off (Black, Devereux, and Salvanes 2005; Maralani 2008). Becker (1991) calls proper consideration of the interaction between child quantity and quality probably the major contribution of the economic analysis of fertility (Becker 1991:135). Becker's economic theory implies that a reduction in the number of children raises investments in child quality, where quality is measured by the current as well as the future well-being of children, including their income when they become adults. In a nutshell, the resource dilution hypothesis states that parental resources are finite and that additional children dilute the amount of time, money, and patience that each child receives from its parents. As a consequence of reduced parental investment per child, the opportunities to move up the social ladder, for example, through higher education are reduced (Downey 1995; Desai 1995; Maralani 2008). Historically, resource dilution is argued to have motivated limitation as inheritance systems became more egalitarian and as education became more important in securing a good social position in terms of wealth and prestige (Van Bavel 2006; Dalla Zuanna 2007). Despite its longstanding record in social and demographic theory, there is little direct empirical evidence backing the relevance of the resource dilution hypothesis for the historical decline in Europe (Downey 1995; Haaga 2001; Black, Devereux, and Salvanes 2005; Dalla Zuanna 2007). …

Sibship size and status attainment across contexts: Evidence from the Netherlands, 1840-1925

Abstract This paper investigates the effects of sibship size on status attainment across different contexts and subgroups. Resource dilution theory predicts that with larger sibship size, children's status outcomes fall. However, the empirical record has shown that this is not always the case. In this paper we have tested three alternative hypotheses for neutral or even positive effects of sibship size on status attainment on the basis of a large-scale registry database covering the period of industrialization and fertility decline in the Netherlands in the nineteenth and early twentieth-century. Our findings offer support for the family developmental cycle, buffering by kin groups, and socio-economic development as alternative explanations to the resource dilution hypothesis. 1. Introduction What is the role of family structure in society? How, in particular, does the configuration of siblings influence how children's lives turn out? Contemporary research on status attainment in Western societies, whether it is geared to measuring educational achievement, intelligence, or occupational attainment, consistently demonstrates a strong negative impact of the sibship size of the family of origin on accomplishments later in life (Blake 1981, 1989; Conley 2005; Davis 1997; Downey 1995; Kasarda and Billy 1985; Steelman et al. 2002). With an increasing number of siblings, children's status outcomes consistently fall. This record of empirical evidence confirms the resource dilution explanation - the most widely accepted theory used to explain the relationships between the basic parameters of the sibling group and children's outcomes. The resource dilution model dates back to the law of capillary action, framed by Arsene Dumont in 1890 and stating that the presence of siblings attenuates resources necessary for social mobility. Developed in a period of demographic transition, Dumont's idea was that when parents wanted their children to be upwardly mobile, they needed to control their fertility and limit their family size. Hence, they would have to trade quantity for quality (Dumont 1890). The resource dilution hypothesis basically depicts the family as a unit that distributes valuable resources to children and this process has implications for children's status outcomes. The amount of resources that can be allocated to any given child depends both on the amount of resources in the family, and on the number of children. The larger the family is, the greater the dilution of resources and therefore the lower the eventual status of the child (Becker 1991; Downey 2001; Steelman et al. 2002). However, over the past decades, a number of studies have presented contradictory evidence. The negative effect of sibship size on child outcomes has been found to be much weaker, neutral or even positive in some developing societies (Buchmann and Hannum 2001; Desai 1995; Eloundou-Enyegue and Williams 2006; Gomes 1984; Hermalin, Seltzer and Lin 1982; Lu and Treiman 2008; Maralani 2008; Razzaque, Streatfield and Evans 2007; Sudha 1997; Yu and Su 2006). Moreover, historical research (Adams and Kasakoff 1992; Van Bavel 2005; Wall 1996), as well as some older sociological work on social class differences in the relation between family size and status attainment (Bayer 1967; Elder 1962), provides evidence that partly refutes the resource dilution hypothesis. These ambiguous findings suggest that there might be different mechanisms at work in the sibship size-child outcome relationship, depending on social-cultural context or subgroup membership. In the literature on sibship size, different explanations have been put forward, ranging from the developmental cycle of the household (Desai 1995), to buffering by extended kin groups (Shavit and Pierce 1991), social institutions (Blake 1989), public policies (Park 2008), and changes in the relationship over the course of socioeconomic development and demographic transition (Maralani 2008; Van Bavel 2005). …

Does the birth order affect the cognitive development of a child?

This article investigates the link between position in the birth order and early scholastic ability. Using matched mother–child data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1979 cohort, NLSY79), I find that being the first-born is beneficial even after controlling for (nonlinear) effects of family size and child characteristics. The verbal ability of first-borns is about one-tenth of a SD higher than for children in the middle of the birth order. There is no evidence that last-borns fare better than intermediate children. The first-born advantage is confirmed by estimates from within-family variation models and I argue that the findings are consistent with the resource dilution hypothesis.

Sibship size and educational attainment. A joint test of the Confluence Model and the Resource Dilution Hypothesis

Studies on family background often explain the negative effect of sibship size on educational attainment by one of two theories: the Confluence Model (CM) or the Resource Dilution Hypothesis (RDH). However, as both theories – for substantively different reasons – predict that sibship size should have a negative effect on educational attainment most studies cannot distinguish empirically between the CM and the RDH. In this paper, I use the different theoretical predictions in the CM and RDH on the role of cognitive ability as a partial or complete mediator of the effect of sibship size to distinguish the two theories and to identify a unique RDH effect on educational attainment. Using sibling data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS) and a random effect Instrumental Variable model I find that, in addition to a negative effect on cognitive ability, sibship size also has a strong negative effect on educational attainment which is uniquely explained by the RDH.

Do Large Sibships Really Lead to Lower Educational Attainment?

The Resource Dilution Hypothesis and related theories predict that sibship size has a negative causal effect on educational attainment. However, because sibship size is likely to be endogenous to children's schooling in the sense that parents who have many children also have other socio-economic characteristics that lead to low educational attainment, it is difficult to determine if sibship size actually has a negative effect on educational attainment or whether the effect is spurious. This article deals with the endogeneity problem by using mothers' and fathers' inherited reproductive capacity as a `natural' experiment which affects sibship size but which, arguably, has no direct effect on children's educational attainment. I analyse data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study and use information on mothers' and fathers' sibship sizes and age at birth of first child as instruments for sibship size. After correcting for endogeneity, I find that sibship size has a negative causal effect on educational attainment.

Parenting as a Dynamic Process: A Test of the Resource Dilution Hypothesis

In this paper, we tested the resource dilution hypothesis, which posits that, because parenting resources are finite, the addition of a new sibling depletes parenting resources for other children in the household. We estimated growth curve models on the self‐reported parenting practices of mothers using four waves of data collected biennially between 1994 and 2000 on a nationally representative sample of 2,082 Canadian children aged 2 to 5 at initial interview and in continuously intact, two‐biological‐parent households. Results showed that when new children were added to the household, mothers exhibited declines in positive interaction, but increased their levels of consistent parenting. Taken together, these findings suggested that parenting resources were reallocated, rather than diluted, when family size increased.

The birth order factor: ordinal position, social strata, and educational achievement.

The relationship between birth order and academic attainment of 817 men and women from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds in the United States was explored. A measure of respondents' family economic situation during their growing-up years was incorporated. Birth order was found to have an impact on total years of education completed among members of the middle class. The observed patterns also indicate that "only" children, contrary to findings of previous research, appear disproportionately to excel in terms of educational attainment. These findings support a resource-dilution hypothesis.