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We exploit a regression discontinuity design to provide causal evidence of the relative age effect (RAE) on a long-run adult age outcome: Political selection. We find strong evidence of the RAE in politics in Finland. However, the effect is heterogeneous: We find that male candidates born early in the calendar year have a significantly higher probability of getting elected to the parliament but no similar RAE applies to female candidates nor to municipal elections. Moreover, this effect only takes place in the most competitive parliamentary districts and is present only for some parties. We also find that in all the groups where the RAE does not exist, early-born candidates are under-represented suggesting attrition of talent in the candidate placement. Overall, our results show that seemingly artificial cutoffs imposed by the government have persistent consequences even on the selection to the highest positions of power within a society.

Detta paper diskuterar RAE i ett sociologiskt perspektiv ; The sports movements in the Scandinavian countries have, in an historical perspective, been comparatively well supported by the State.State support for youth leisure activities has been directed to different youth organizations, particularly sports clubs. Government grants tosport are given primarily because it fulfills through its various activities a number of goals which do not necessarily have to do with sports,but which society considers important to achieve by means of government funding. The resources are to be used to reach out to peopleand activate those who want to take part in organized sports or choose to do physical exercise for their own well-being. For sports clubs,however, fostering top athletes is an essential part of their pursuit. Selection systems believed to produce top athletes exists at all levelswithin the sports movements – local, regional and national. And selection systems cannot be used without the appearance of RelativeAge Effects. RAEs have been suggested as representing a form of bias, irrationality, and are counter-productive to longer-term attainmentand the motives of the State to support youth sport. In the long run this could lead to the public acceptance of a generous tax-paid supportto youth sport being jeopardized. Therefore we argue for the research community to engage with sport organizations and sportgoverning bodies to more strongly support child and youth longer-term development. We also believe in the importance of doing thisusing a multidisciplinary approach.

Traditionally, the Relative Age Effect (RAE) is determined with a chi-squared goodness-of-fit test based on a theoretical expected distribution of birthdates. This distribution must be that of the parent population, but many authors choose to replace it by a uniform distribution in order to simplify calculations. The consequences of this simplification are: (a) the actual Type 1 risk is no longer controlled at the conventional threshold of significance; (b) this risk increases with the sample size; and (c) the associated goodness-of-fit test is biased. The importance of these problems is tested on a national population and on a population of registered players.

AbstractPolitical selection is crucial for the functioning of democracy. However, the practice—in education and sports contexts—of artificially dividing school‐age children into different age groups leads to a considerable bias in this selection. The probability of becoming a (successful) politician depends on individuals' relative age. Being born shortly after the cut‐off date significantly increases the probability that an individual will be politically successful later in life. Using a regression discontinuity design, we find strong evidence of such relative age effect (RAE) among a large sample of Belgian federal parliamentarians over the period 1950–2019 (N = 4032), but not among municipal councillors (N = 7387), nor among municipal candidates (N = 36,740) in the 2018 election. The estimated overrepresentation of federal members of the parliament (MPs) born immediately after the cut‐off date is up to 90% compared to politicians born just before the cut‐off date. The overrepresentation is observed over the whole period and thus seems to be deeply rooted in the political system. We find the RAE to have a gendered dimension: The effect is driven by early‐born male politicians' overrepresentation. No significant RAE was found among female politicians.

To be able to value the relative age effect in the male and female World Championships played between 2005 and 2010 in the U17 categories (athletes 17 years or younger), U19 (athletes 19 or younger) and U21 (athletes 21 years or younger) a sample of 954 players has been selected. The variables registered were their dates of birth, the category of the competition, gender, height and official statistics of each player obtained from the International Basketball Federation (FIBA). A clear relative age effect was found (in both male and female categories) fading with age, being higher in the U17 category, slightly less but also significant in the U19, and no significant effect found in U21. This effect persists when the different specific positions were analysed in the male categories, being clearer in the positions that require more physical strength. In female categories the results do not back the existence of the relative age effect. Also, differences were found in height in the male category with regard to the players' year-quarter of birth, but its interpretation is not consistent with the relative age effect. In the female category no differences were found in height. Finally, the performance difference of the players in the male and female categories hardly varies with regard to the year-quarter of birth.