Abstract: The inverse association between sibship size and education is well established in social research. The resource dilution model posits that under the assumption of finite education resources, additional children could dilute the quantity of educational resources any one child would receive, and thus exert negative impacts on children’s educational outcomes. In China, relevant researches are all based upon adult samples. As most of adults have ended their educational career, research with adult samples cannot examine the role that various educational resources play in explaining the negative link between sibship size and educational outcomes. In this paper, based on a children sample from 2010 China Family Panel Studies, we divide educational resources that might be influential for children’s education into three types: financial investment resources, parental involvement resources, and family environment resources. Our results reconfirm that children with bigger sibship sizes are more disadvantaged both in obtaining all these educational resources and in academic achievement. Moreover, we find these educational resources could help explain substantively the negative effect of sibship size on academic achievement, whereas the three types of educational resources contribute differently to explaining the effect of sibship size on word verbal skills and the effect of sibship size on math skills.

Keywords: Sibship Size, Educational Resources, Academic Achievement, Resource Dilution Theory, Family

摘要： 研究表明，一个人的兄弟姐妹数与其教育成就之间呈负相关。“资源稀释论”认为，兄弟姐妹增多会稀释家中每个孩子获得的教育资源，并由此抑制孩子的教育发展。在中国，相关研究都以成年人为研究对象、并未观测到个体从家庭中获得教育资源的具体过程，因而无法直接验证资源稀释论。文章基于2010年“中国家庭追踪调查”的儿童样本，归纳出儿童所获得的三类教育资源—经济投入、父母参与和家庭环境资源，发现尽管当前中国儿童的兄弟姐妹普遍较少，但获得的各项教育资源及其学业成绩依然随兄弟姐妹的增多而显著降低。不仅如此，儿童的教育资源获得还可以有效解释兄弟姐妹数对学业成绩的消极作用；并且，各类教育资源的解释力在不同学科上也存在差异。

关键词: 兄弟姐妹数, 教育资源, 学业成绩, 资源稀释论, 家庭