New Delhi: Older siblings can be a blight in the way they get more pocket money and new things instead of hand-me-downs. Now new research claims they may also be costing younger siblings money in the long run.
Younger siblings earn 1.9 per cent per cent less than firstborns by age 30. And researchers say the germs their older sibling brought back from school may be largely to blame.
A University of Copenhagen-led study analysing Danish health and income data spanning 1981 to 2017 found that respiratory bugs older siblings carry home from nursery hit infant brothers and sisters hardest in their first year of life — with consequences that follow them into the workplace decades later.
“We… find lasting differential impacts of early-life respiratory disease exposure on younger siblings’ earnings, educational attainment, chronic respiratory health and mental health-related outcomes,” said the working paper published by the Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality at the University of Copenhagen.
Also Read: Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana improved children’s height & weight, says US study
The germ factor
The research tracked how illness spreads within families. Younger siblings, it found, are two to three times more likely to be hospitalised for respiratory illness in their first year of life than firstborns were at the same age, with the gap most pronounced in the first three months.
The study explains that firstborn toddlers pick up bugs at nursery and carry them home to infant siblings who are at a vulnerable stage of lung and brain development.
Children who faced more illness at this early stage, according to the study, attain less education and have slightly slimmer wallets.
Other studies have studied this pattern as well, and found that older siblings have an advantage.
A joint study by the University of Edinburgh and the University of Sydney, which followed 5,000 children from birth to age 14, found that firstborns scored higher on reading and vocabulary assessments, with the gap visible within the first year of life. Research from the University of Essex also found that firstborns are 7 per cent more ambitious about their educational prospects at age 13 than younger siblings.
Also Read: USA FDA approves Otarmeni—A breakthrough gene therapy for deafness
It’s not just about parents
The University of Copenhagen paper points to previous research that has long identified uneven parental attention and family resources as drivers of younger siblings’ disadvantage. But it argues that the disease environment in infancy is an additional and underappreciated factor, which persists even when parents try to compensate for a sick younger child.
“Our novel estimates of long-term impacts of severe respiratory disease can inform household behaviors and cost-benefit evaluations of policies designed to curb transmission of common viruses, including vaccination mandates, drug distribution programs, and sick pay regulations,” it added.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)