How Having a Big Sister Benefits Younger Siblings But at a Cost Listen (Rachaphak/iStock) Full disclosure: As someone who grew up the big sister to a brother, I have a bit of a stake in the subject of this article. It's a new study that suggests big sisters can make a powerful difference for their younger siblings. But there's no such personal angle for the authors of the study: economists Pamela Jakiela and Owen Ozier of Williams College in Massachusetts. "No! I'm an only child," Jakiela says with a chuckle. "And Owen is an older brother." Rather, she says, they were prompted to do the study after reading that many parents in Kenya give daughters a huge amount of responsibility when they're still very young.