This paper examines the effect of birth order on educational attainment and child
labour in Lesotho. Using family fixed effects models, I find robust negative birth order
effects on educational attainment and child labour. The birth order effects on educational
attainment are in sharp contrast with the evidence from many other developing
countries such as Ecuador and Kenya, but are consistent with the evidence from developed
countries. I further find that these birth order effects are pronounced in large
families, and families with first-born girls, which suggests presence of girls’ education
bias. Turning to potential pathways of these effects, I find that they are not propagated
through family wealth, but mainly through birth-spacing. These results are robust to
different sample restrictions.