Sibling Correlations in Schooling around the World: A New Database

We estimate sibling correlations in schooling (i.e., the fraction of inequality in educational outcomes that can be attributed to factors shared by siblings) for 94 countries, accounting for 85% of the world population. With this new database, we document several findings. On average, at least 51% of the inequality in schooling can be explained by shared family background. There are large regional differences, with North America and South Asia displaying the lowest and highest sibling correlations, respectively. There is important heterogeneity within some regions. The average sibling correlation has been decreasing across cohorts, mainly driven by North America and Latin America and the Caribbean region. Across countries, educational mobility appears to be strongly correlated with several social and economic variables.