Firstborns are More Likely to Find Love

Firstborn, middle, youngest, or single children…who is most likely to succeed at life and love?

The research team at PlentyOfFish set out to understand how your order in the family impacts your likelihood of reaching financial and personal success. With a sample size of 7.6 million singles, the PlentyOfFish research team conducted a comprehensive study that examined the correlation between birth order and long-term relationships, income brackets and education level. They also looked at the relationship between birth order and hair colour, pets and body type. What did they find? Firstborns are more likely to experience several advantages in life. In comparison to their younger siblings, firstborns are more likely to find a relationship, pursue higher education, and make between $100k and $150k a year. The findings differed depending on the number of children in the family, but firstborn children consistently came out on top.

Here are some of the most interesting findings from the study:

Firstborn children experience several advantages in life in comparison to their younger siblings. They are more likely to find a relationship, pursue higher education and make a higher income compared to their younger siblings.
Middle children are the least likely to find a relationship.
Youngest children are the least likely to pursue higher education compared to their older siblings.
Single children experience several disadvantages in life. They are less likely to pursue higher education and make an income over $50K in comparison to most singles who have siblings.

How was the study conducted? This PlentyOfFish study examined North American singles, both men and women between the ages of 25 and 45 years old from families with up to 6 children. All users must have created a PlentyOfFish profile since 2013, and we included both current users and those who have since deleted their accounts. The content of this post is based on the information provided by our users to populate their profiles, and we compared the eldest, middle, youngest and single children to examine how they compared to the average user on the site within the same sample group.

How Does Your Birth Order Influence Your Direction in Life?

Likelihood of Finding a Relationship and Birth Order

Firstborn children are more likely to find a relationship in comparison to their younger counterparts.
Middle children across the board are the least likely to find a relationship.

Income and Birth Order

Single children are 18% less likely to make between $100K and $150K.
Eldest of three is 11% more likely to make between $100K. and $150K. Eldest children are the most likely to make an income over $100K/year.
Middle children are more likely to make between $100K and $150K compared to their younger sibling/s.

Education and Birth Order

Single children are 12% less likely to pursue a PhD. Firstborn children in a family of two, are 20% more likely to pursue a PhD.
Firstborn children (regardless of the number of children in the family) are the most likely to pursue higher education, and less likely to only have a high school degree.
As the number of children in a family increases, the likelihood that the children will pursue a bachelor’s degree decreases. The exception is single children who are 13% less likely to pursue a bachelor’s degree.

AN INFOGRAPH:

Research Leads

Morgan Cabot BSc. is a Data Analyst at PlentyOfFish, where she explores the site’s massive database to search for interesting patterns and trends. She graduated from the University of British Columbia on the Dean’s Honour list with a BSc in Mathematics.

Steve Oldridge PhD. leads the Research team at PlentyOfFish and was the main researcher involved in writing several of the PlentyOfFish matching algorithms. He earned a PhD from the University of British Columbia in Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Credits: Christina Martin (Design), Morgan Cabot and Steve Oldridge (Research)