Birthday effect

ABSTRACT

According to the Turkish legal code, a student born in December must enrol in primary school alongside students born 11 months earlier in January. In this study, Turkish college admissions data is used to measure the effect of younger enrolment in primary school. It was found that students who are born in the second half of the year are less likely to be from selective public high schools, and are less likely to be successful in college admissions test. These results are consistent with disadvantages associated with younger enrolment in primary school.

KEYWORDS:

• Birthdate effect
• relative age
• college admissions test
• enrolment age

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• I21
• I28

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ The difference between the ratios of selective and nonselective public high school applicants is not statistically significant for July or August. The difference between ratios of nonselective public high school applicants and private school applicants is not statistically significant for January or August.

² Months are coded as follows: January = 1, February = 2, …, December = 12.