Firstborn daughters, listen up: Scientists have discovered you'll likely end up being more ambitious and successful than your younger siblings. Yep, have fun lording that one over them.
"This was a study that found oldest daughters are 13 percent more likely to go to college than firstborn sons." (Via HLN)
Their research yielded many observations, which The Atlantic neatly summed up.
In general, firstborn children — boys and girls — are 7 percent more likely to continue onto college and 16 percent more likely to go onto graduate school. But researchers also concluded that firstborn girls are 13 percent more likely to go onto college and graduate school than firstborn sons.
"Researchers think it's because parents devote more time to the oldest children." (Via HLN)
Now, a writer for Scientific American points out the extra time eldest children get from their parents most likely isn't intentional.
For example, firstborns get all their parents' time before the next sibling is born. And then once siblings come along, parents often feel they need to spend extra time with their firstborn so he or she doesn't feel overshadowed by the new children. (Via Scientific American)
Researchers from the University of Essex in the U.K. looked at families containing different types of sibling groups.
Excluding families with only children or firstborn sets of twins, they strived to discover if differences in the birth order affected academic success, The Guardian reports.
Time points out that this is the case no matter whether the eldest has sisters, brothers or both. But the researchers did find another factor that seemed to be at play: The firstborn girls who are most likely to succeed are the ones who are at least four years older than the next sibling.
And for all you disbelievers out there, let's take a look at some celebrities whose success seems to exemplify the researchers' findings.
There's Oprah and Hillary Clinton — oh, and the Duchess of Cambridge herself, Kate Middleton. (Via Flickr / Alan Light / Flickr / Marc Nozell / Clarence House)
We think that's pretty decent proof.