The Effect of Breastfeeding on Educational Attainment: Evidence from Sibling Data

Using data on sibling pairs drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we estimate the effect of having been breastfed on high school graduation, high school grades, and college attendance. Our results suggest that breastfeeding is associated with substantial increases in high school GPA and in the probability of college attendance. Adding measures of cognitive ability and adolescent health to our model explains more than one half of the estimated effect of being breastfed on high school grades and approximately one-fifth of the estimated effect on college attendance. We conclude that improvements in cognitive ability and adolescent health may be important pathways through which breastfeeding affects long-term academic achievement.