Older Siblings Proven Smarter

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dsmith2904

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Just saw this story on Yahoo! As an oldest child, I like to think that it's true.

Older Siblings Smarter, Norwegian Study Shows

2 hours, 21 minutes ago Health - Reuters

OSLO (Reuters) - First born children in Norway get better education and as adults are more successful in the job market than younger siblings, a Norwegian-U.S. study showed.

"It is the birth order and not necessarily the size of the family that is important," said economics professor Kjell Salvanes of the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration. "It is better if you are the first born." Salvanes and two colleagues from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) based their study on census data of Norwegians born between 1912 and 1975.

The findings will be published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, a Harvard publication, in May.

They found that younger siblings tend to get less schooling than their elders and then end up with lower pay on average and were more likely to be in part-time work, Salvanes said. The findings were likely to hold true in other countries, he said.

"In terms of educational attainment, if you are the fourth born instead of the first, you get almost one year less education, and that is quite a lot," Salvanes told Reuters.

And first-born children tend to weigh more at birth than their younger brothers and sisters, which is a good predictor for educational success, Salvanes said.

Children alone with two adults also tend to get more intellectual stimulation than children in large families who get less parental attention, he said.

First-born children seem to learn from teaching their younger siblings, contrary to the common notion that younger children benefit by learning from their elders, Salvanes said.

So does that mean big sisters really are smarter?

"Yes. It's hard to admit because I have older sisters," Salvanes said.
 
My brother, the oldest of three, is the only one of us not to have a college degree. My sister, the middle one, has some post grad education and has by far the best paying job of all of us. I have a BA and I'm self employed (don't make a lot, even in good years, but my boss is better than most :D ). All of us scored about the same on IQ tests when we were little.
 
Doozer61 said:
there is an 11 year difference between me and MR BAW :hmm:



But neither one of you is the oldest :wink:



I on the other hand am the oldest (therefore the smartest) of 5 :D
 
Doozer61 said:
there is an 11 year difference between me and MR BAW :hmm:

Isn't it true that a difference of 6 years or more means the younger one starts the cycle over as having the "traits" of an oldest child?
 
I'm a heck of a lot smarter than my sister is, so the proof is working on my end. Alas, I'll never have a shred of her athletic ability. :(
 
My brother and sister are much smarter than me I reckon, yesterday my sister got 100% in an A-level exams, exams that I studied for a year for to get my grade wheras she only studied for this subject for 3 months and my brother also got 2 results yesterday and got 94 and 97% in them (and he even boasts that he did no work for them). My sister was also the highest achiever in her last year of school (last year) in her public exams. They are both going to study pharmacy and medicine and I'm studying languages. I'd say they are much smarter than me. I did get the highest set of grades in my exams too but never came highest in my year or got 97% in any exam, I could never have studied for medicine or pharmacy.
 
Don't think we're smarter, but we get more adult interreaction
so we tend to have to learn quicker than the younger siblings who get more of a pass. So I think older children are probably quicker, but not necessarily smarter.

We are also pushed harder and we have to break the parental barriers so parents are worn out for the younger siblings. We are probably more smart-mouthed and rebellious and at odds with our parents. (I generalize here) I think we are also often confused and fucked up. Older children don't get to be children.
 
LivLuvAndBootlegMusic said:


Isn't it true that a difference of 6 years or more means the younger one starts the cycle over as having the "traits" of an oldest child?

i would agree with this. my sister is 12 years older than me so i've spent the majority of my life as sort of an only child. :shrug:
 
dsmith2904 said:
Children alone with two adults also tend to get more intellectual stimulation
i certainly agree with this. i'm an only child, and still to this day, i find myself more at home talking with adults (as in people my parents' age) than my peers.

my mom is the oldest and definitely the smartest. she has a degree and her younger sister doesn't, and has also been unemployed for several years. i think my dad's the smartest of three (he's the oldest as well), but the middle son is a lawyer. it's a bit hard to compete with that. but my dad managed to get his bachelor's in four years, while working three jobs and raising a daughter (not me, this was with his first wife). you have to be pretty smart to keep your grades up living like that!
 
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