Explaining birth order effects on child nutrition: Evidence from Kyrgyzstan
利用吉尔吉斯斯坦全国调查数据，发现后出生的儿童营养状况比头胎差，尤其在身高别年龄指标上，且祖母同住和户主教育高能减轻但无法消除这种差距。
This paper examines the effects of birth order on child nutrition in Kyrgyzstan, a lower-middle-income country in Central Asia characterized by a Soviet legacy of universal healthcare, relatively high fertility, widespread multigenerational co-residence, and growing economic vulnerability. Using nationally representative data from three waves of the Kyrgyzstan Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey and a mother fixed-effects design, we find that later-born children have worse nutritional outcomes than firstborns, with differences most pronounced and robust for height-for-age (HAZ). Differences in weight-for-age (WAZ) are smaller and less precisely estimated, while weight-for-height (WHZ) shows no systematic variation. Subgroup analyses suggest that birth order disparities vary descriptively across household environments, while formal tests generally do not indicate statistically significant differences across most dimensions. Although grandmother co-residence and higher household head's education are associated with smaller birth order penalties, they do not fully eliminate birth order disparities.