How Your Birth Month Impacts Your Success

ABOUT THIS VIDEO:

Sources, copyrights, music, data sources, 3D model licensing and software used for this video available at:

In this video we discuss the Relative Age Effect (RAE) and its impact on Sports, Education and Career.

Credits:
Korean Subtitles - Incheol Kwag

⌛️Timestamps
00:00 - Intro
00:26 - What is the Relative Age Effect (RAE)?
02:00 - RAE in Sports
04:48 - RAE in Education
05:55 - RAE in Career
06:20 - How to solve the Relative Age Effect?
06:50 - Credits

ABOUT THIS CHANNEL:

Memeable Data is a Data Journalism YouTube channel that covers various topics from the perspective of Data Science and presents them to a broad audience through visual storytelling.

#relativeageeffect #datajournalism #datascience #dataanalysis #python #blender #dataisbeautiful

[memeabledata]

Some corrections and remarks based on input from comments:
1. If you were born in the later months of the year that does NOT mean you can't be as successful as people born in the earlier months. It means that the relative age disadvantage you've had to face during your childhood might have made it harder to succeed in sports and school. There are plenty of elite athletes born in December (e.g Kylian Mbappé) and that didn't stop them.
2. A lot of comments are mentioning the book Outliers by Malcolm and asking why it was not mentioned in the video. Even though the Relative Age Effect was popularized by the book, the RAE has been studied since the 1960s. Most of the research for this video was based on scientific literature.
3. 03:24 - The label should spell '27% less', not '28% less'.
4. 04:55 - Contrary to what I mentioned, the school age cut-off in Portugal is actually September 16 (and not December 31) for most schools/students. In my school, it was Dec 31 for most students though.
5. 06:37 - "In Sports, children should be selected based on skill, not on size or strength". This was poorly phrased and not exactly true because: A) older kids are (on average) more skilled; B) body size matters in many sports. The message I tried to explain is that coaches should take into account that December children are 11 months behind January kids in growth. When they select an older child over a younger one, they should try to make sure the advantage is not only due to the age difference.

[tacocruiser]

Now I can blame all my personal failures on this. Thank you!

[andzagorulko]

Don't know how to feel about being born in December now.

[SturtH]

The underdog hypothesis is also true. When young football players are scouted from poorer countries, I remember seeing stats that the youngest siblings and kids were usually indexed higher in ability/promise. From a lifetime of having to play against older kids and develop faster

[aymannnnnnnnnn]

"Life is fair"

Also life :

[eatsomefeet]

For those who were born in later months: you are not dumb or weak just because you weren't born in earlier months and you still can have a successful life and career so don't get discouraged because of this!

[agnesiuszuckerguss]

I was born in december but I started school one year late so I have always been one of the oldest people in class, and I can absolutely see the difference between the performance of the younger vs the older kids in class, even though we're only a few months apart

[aidenwinter]

One thing perhaps quite unscientific I've noticed that this video never mentioned is that the festive seasons are between Sep-Jan and those typically lead to more unplanned parenthood. Instinct tells me not only January babies have more mentally developed brains than those in the same academic year group, they are more likely conceived in the more boring months of the year, which implies they are more likely the results of planned parenthood. Parents who plan their families are more likely to have better time management and budgetting skills, which is why they can most definitely afford children in the first place. Those skills and intelligence are passed onto their children through home education, observation and genetics, so they are more likely to be successful. Referring back to the bar chart at the beginning, those conceived during festive seasons do seem to have the lowest success. This is probably unscientific because I'm not a social scientist, but does anyone else share the same thought?

[espetosfera]

This problem can be easily minimized by separating the class by semester instead of year, so the difference between students would be a maximum of 6 months instead of almost 12, in fact we could divide most periods better if we divided them into periods with less months., but 6 months is something easier to do and doesn't add much cost, and sports and university selections can be done more or less every 6 months too, this would improve mental, physical and financial health, reduce bullying, increase companionship in general population.

[marioex]

I live in the US and I was born in August. Our cutoff for grade levels is September 1 and so I was almost always the youngest in my classes. I was usually smaller than the rest of them and felt less developed mentally too. The only way I managed to keep up was by being better academically and trying harder to be better in the activities I did. Even now that I’ve graduated college and have a job, I still feel the impacts of being the youngest of my work groups

[zcalhoun]

i’m one of the youngest kids in my class, born just two weeks before the cut-off date. something i’ve always noticed is that a high portion of the people in advanced classes are those who are older. (10-11 months older than me). Many of my classmates could get drivers licenses, work, and vote before me, which impacted our social statuses differently.

but if you are younger in your grade like me, don’t despair! we have lots of life to live. i am taking a gap year before college and will enter college at a similar age that my classmates are entering now🤷‍♀️ which is also a privilege in my opinion

[bottomtext]

Don't let this get to your head, Bill Gates was born on October 28.

[jackuzi]

I think there is a lot to this. I was born in September, and all through school was always just about the youngest in my grade. Even in middle and high school, one year can make a difference in your physical development. This doesn't matter just for sports--guys are bigger and stronger, girls are more physically developed, which makes you more attractive to others as friends and as a romantic interest. I'm from the US and getting your driver's license a year earlier makes a difference in your independence and social life. My school years weren't bad, but now that I'm aware of this I do wonder how they'd have been different if I'd been born one month later (and therefore been one grade later in school).

[_Gibibit]

I found this interesting tidbit in the Discussion section of the dutch research paper: "Third, in the subgroup of adolescents who had repeated a grade (16.9%), inverse relative-age effects were observed; the relatively young were thinner (weight and BMI), had higher school marks, and reported less depressive symptoms than their relatively older peers."

This implies that older students get unhappy when repeating a grade, possibly because the now too large age gaps makes them fit in less well despite being older (purely hypothetically).

Regarding the fact that younger students score relatively worse than the older group: it would be interesting to see research about what happens to school results specifically when everyone starts a year older. The gap later in life would probably become much smaller because of the "Matthew" effect, although it would still be there.

Btw it would be nice if you put the sources in the description as well. It's nice (and required imnsho) that they're there in the video, but makes it hard to find a specific one after having finished the vid.

[malaj]

im from Spain, and being born after summer actually has a social effect too, for example all of my friends were clubbing in the summer after senior year but I wasn't still 18 so I had to wait till my birthday in halloween, not only that, I was 17 when I began college. However being younger made me more competitive and I mature before normal. It's crazy how almost all of my friends are born in October-november like me, because my January friends that are my age are actually almost 1 year older than me. And that difference must be even more crazy for the people born in December.

[OKOKOKOKOKOKOK-znfy]

In Korea, if you were born on December 31 at 11:59:59, you were one year old when born.
A second later, you turned two years old even though you have only been breathing for total of two seconds.
When you get to school, you will be a fraction of the size of the other kids and ruthlessly bullied.
Korea has the weirdest age counting system in the world.
The honorifics are based on the number of years you have been alive.
I hear they have changed it since I was a kid.

[rajahbitancor]

As someone born in February (which is the second best month according to this data) I couldn't possibly say I have a lot or any of the attributes listed in this video. I know pretty successful people born late into the year and they seem to be doing just fine.

The truth is to focus on bettering yourself. Don't worry the "data." It's true, not everything that happens in your life can be controlled by you... but what you can control is how you react to those circumstances, that's the test of character.

Don't let some video demoralize you because you happen to be born in the fall of '04 or something

[slowcyclist]

I love being a December kid.
It’s nice knowing that despite your comparative disadvantage, you still managed to succeed and exceed your peers.

Really helps solidify the fact that you really are better than them.

Edit: the academic year where I’m from starts jan 1. So the later in the year that you’re born in, the larger your “disadvantage”. Not that it really mattered tbh…..

[envar]

I have always noticed the subtle advantages I have from being born in January. Getting your driver’s license early is nice. Just maturing a bit earlier also changes your success in school. I think it would be wise to attempt to have your kid born within the first three months.

[dexterredeyes]

scientists be like: what the fuck did i just watched.