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SALT LAKE CITY — Firstborns, get ready to be smug. A new study shows oldest children are more likely to be successful in academics and careers.
Specifically, the U.K.-based study indicates eldest girls are the ones who run the world. Not unlike Hillary Clinton, Sheryl Sandberg and Beyonce, girls who lead out in a family have a 16 percent more likely chance of success.
Feifei Bu looked at more than 3,000 individuals in both the British Household Panel Survey and the U.K. Household Longitudinal Study to discover that those born first are usually the more ambitious siblings. Girls especially have higher goals and appear to be more willing to work from them.
“Eldest kids separated from their brothers and sisters by a significant age gap — four or more years — are likelier, at 13, to express an interest in higher education, and they go on to pursue more advanced degrees,” a Slate article about the study said.
Bu told The Guardian it is likely parents have more time and energy for their first children.
"For me, I tend to lean towards the theory that parental investment is possibly at work here,” Bu said. "And I would say that the larger the age gap between the children, the better the qualifications. I don't think the number of children is something I can say anything about, as this study was done here in the U.K., where family size tends to be smaller, so there was no substantial difference to note."
Slate also speculated that oldest children feel less pressure to differentiate themselves from their siblings, so the freedom to choose their own identity gives them more options as far as ambition.
