Does your second-born child give you a hard time? Well, you may not be the only one. According to a report from MIT economist Joseph Doyle, it’s not uncommon for second-born children to be more mischevious.
“I find the results to be remarkable that the second-born children, compared to their older siblings, are much more likely to end up in prison, much more likely to get suspended in school, enter juvenile delinquency,” Doyle told NPR.
Some experts say this could be because second-borns have different role models than their older sibling did.
The study only looked at sets of brothers and found that among the thousands of pairs that were studied in the U.S. and Europe about 25 to 40 percent of the second-born borns were more likely to get in serious trouble at school or with the law.
“Birth order has been found to have a surprisingly large influence on educational attainment, yet much less is known about the role of birth order on delinquency outcomes such as disciplinary problems in school, juvenile delinquency, and adult crime: outcomes that carry signi cant negative externalities,” the study says.
“Despite large differences in environments across the two areas, we found remarkably consistent results: in families with two or more children, second-born boys are on the order of 20 to 40 percent more likely to be disciplined in school and enter the criminal justice system compared to rst-born boys even when we compare siblings.”
The study found that this could be because parents are spending less time with their second-borns.
“We do find that parental time investment measured by time out of the labor force is higher for first-borns at ages 2-4, suggesting that the arrival of a second-born child extends early-childhood parental investments for first-borns,” the study reads.
The difference in role models that first and second born siblings have could also be a factor.
“The firstborn has role models, who are adults. And the second, later-born children have role models who are slightly irrational 2-year-olds, you know, their older siblings,” Doyle told NPR. “Both the parental investments are different, and the sibling influences probably contribute to these differences we see in the labor market and what we find in delinquency. It’s just very difficult to separate those two things because they happen at the same time.”
So, if you spend enough quality time with your second child and make sure he has good role models, you may be able to avoid this “second-born” curse.
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