The structure of Brazilian families has been changing over the past three decades. As a result of the demographic transition children are sharing family resources with fewer siblings. In this dissertation, I examine the consequences of such significant changes on schooling and school enrollment of 14 year-olds. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the effects of smaller family sizes and their gender and age composition on schooling, school enrollment and intergenerational transmission of education for cohorts of children born prior to and after significant fertility decline. The investigation provides evidence of an overall increase in school participation and schooling for younger cohorts, although it also shows persistent inefficiency in children's schooling. In order to examine whether the reasons for the improvement in children's schooling and school participation are related to decreasing family size and increasing mother's schooling I utilize nationally representative data of the PNADs (National Household Sample Survey), and estimate logistic and ordinary least squares regressions for cohorts of 14 year-olds born in 1963 and 1983. In looking at the role of social origin on children's schooling and school participation across regions and cohorts this dissertation yields two major findings: a pattern of decreasing inequality on the intergenerational transmission of education across cohorts, and a persistent trend in the relative disadvantage of northeast children. Results also suggest that fertility decline has benefited children's education through changes in children's distribution across family sizes. Further, the investigation also reveals that siblings affect children's schooling in different ways, depending on siblings' age and gender. This finding points to the importance of accounting for the role of siblings' characteristics on children's schooling and school enrollment in addition to the number of siblings. Overall, findings show that family size explains nearly as much of the change in schooling as changes in mothers' education and substantially more than family income, and calls attention to the stratification power of other unusual within-family factors, such as family size. Much of the inhibition to educational attainment has occurred and continues to occur early in life in Brazil, which reinforces the importance of family factors for educational stratification.Ph.D.DemographyIndividual and family studiesSocial SciencesSocial structureUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/128144/2/3029386.pd
