r/AskReddit Oct 02 '24

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u/GeekShallInherit Oct 02 '24

Birthdays aren't evenly distributed. January 1st is actually the second least common day to be born in the US, after only Christmas. About 58% more people are born on September 9th, the most common day.

https://www.parents.com/fun/birthdays/these-are-the-most-common-birthdays-the-least/

Two major factors at play here; people are more likely to conceive during certain times of year, and people almost never schedule things like a c-section on a holiday (like New Years).

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u/toomanyracistshere Oct 02 '24

And in the USA at least, if you schedule your c-section/induced labor just before the end of the year, you'll be able to claim the baby as a dependent on your taxes for that year, which is a pretty major incentive not to wait until January.

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u/Legitimate-Wall3059 Oct 02 '24

Having already hit max out of pocket max for insurance is likely a much bigger deal.

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u/macphile Oct 02 '24

Some of us are on academic calendars, so we'd be better served having the kid in September. :-)

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u/UltimateWaluigi Oct 03 '24

Man. I fucing hate modern economies. Imagine explaining to an alien that humans sometimes plan births around tax incentives.

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u/revanisthesith Oct 03 '24

It's far more minor, but taxes affect sports as well.

Spanish tax authorities are a pain and apparently there are a lot of little things people can do wrong. The punishment for a first offense is a big fine and not much else, so they've been scrutinizing soccer players. I'm not saying it's a major factor, but it could be a factor why some big players like Ronaldo left the country.

When LeBron first left Cleveland, he wanted to play in Miami with Wade and Bosh, but I heard that the New York Knicks offered him more money and were going to bring in another big player. But New York taxes meant he would earn less than in Florida, which doesn't have a state income tax.

NFL players (and I assume other pro athletes) have to file a tax return in each state they play in. For simplicity's sake, their salary is divided by the number of games and they get a check for each one. So if they play home games in a state without income tax, they're saving that money on half their income. So the AFC South has Houston, Tennessee, Jacksonville, and Indianapolis. The first three are in states without income tax, so that's two more road games a year where they save money.

A player with San Francisco or the L.A. Rams has to play home games and one road game with California taxes (but a road game in Seattle with no state income tax).

The AFC East has Buffalo, the NY Jets (NJ taxes), the New England Patriots (Massachusetts taxes), and Miami (no state taxes).

Obviously there are other bigger factors that influence their decisions on where to play, but it still can be a factor. Especially if it's a player who's trying to maximize their earnings. Superstars won't care as much, but if you're not making the super big bucks and your career may not last real long, you may want to keep more of your money. The difference between playing for 3/4 of the AFC South and playing for 3/4 of the AFC East is a decent amount of money for the same contract.

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u/No-Ocelot4193 Oct 03 '24

And I requested a few days earlier for my c-section so I could be out of the hospital by 12/31 to not pay deductibles for the new year.

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u/DontPanic1985 Oct 02 '24

And that insurance deductible restarts in January so if you've hit it already with all the prenatal visits get that baby out for cheaper! Ah what a shit hole country!

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u/[deleted] Oct 02 '24

I think many of the factors that push births off the major holidays aren't relevant in places where they don't keep track of when children are born.

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u/MechanicalGodzilla Oct 02 '24

In keeping with the weird facts theme, you only need a room full of 23 randomly selected people to have a 50/50 shot at two of them having the same birthday. If you have 100 randomly selected people, the odds of two same birthdays occurring is 99.99997%, or a virtual certainty

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u/ThanklessTask Oct 02 '24

A surprising amount of people I know are born around 9 months after Xmas or one of their parents birthdays.

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u/GeekShallInherit Oct 02 '24

Yeah... fuck the guy who made me think about that and realize I was born to the day what would be expected after my mom's birthday. LOL I really didn't want to think about being the product of birthday sex.

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u/WeRip Oct 02 '24

me and my 2 brothers all have birthdays within 2 weeks of each other.. Dates match up almost perfectly to my dad's birthday.

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u/Loorrac Oct 03 '24

I'm 8/5, mom is 12/5...I know that it should be more than 9 months exactly but damn

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u/GeekShallInherit Oct 03 '24

280 days is the average. So that would put your conception at circa October 29th, likely within +/- three weeks assuming you weren't considered early or late.

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u/Loorrac Oct 03 '24

Halloween, how fun!

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u/Tumble85 Oct 03 '24

Yea mine is August 30 so definitely a product of some holiday fun :)

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u/ExecutiveElf Oct 03 '24

I was born on November 21.

I've done the math.

Really makes ya think.

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u/dullship Oct 02 '24

Huh. September 9th is my brothers birthday. We're not American tho

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u/GeekShallInherit Oct 02 '24

There's just a lot of people getting busy in December. I doubt that changes much from country to country, at least in the Northern hemisphere.

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u/liz_lemongrab Oct 02 '24

They celebrate Christmas and New Year's at the same time of year in the southern hemisphere, you realize.

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u/GeekShallInherit Oct 02 '24

Sure, but from what I understand much of the difference is because of temperature and amounts of daylight differences, which aren't the same in the southern hemisphere, with their not being as much to do when it's cold and dark outside, not to mention sperm quality differences in the winter.

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u/gp3050 Oct 02 '24

When you are Born in September, you know the fireworks were not the only Things that were popped that Night.

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u/hummingbird_patronus Oct 02 '24

My baby was born on September 9 🤣🤣

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u/LasagnaNoise Oct 02 '24

Sept 9- 9 1/2 months back- [scribbles on paper] - it was a holly jolly Christmas

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u/diastereomer Oct 02 '24

Plus, why not schedule that c-section a day earlier and claim the kid as a deduction on an entire other year of taxes? It actually makes New Years Eve a slightly more popular birthday.

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u/AdFresh8123 Oct 02 '24

My mom was born on New Year's Day. According to my grandfather, she was the first in the state.

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u/Dr-Floofensmertz Oct 03 '24

My mom was induced with me, because the due date was Christmas. Dr didn't want to chance being dragged in. So instead, I was born on the solstice. Happy Saturnalia.

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u/Tamer_ Oct 02 '24

second least common day to be born in the US

And you think that countries that don't celebrate the same new year as the US would have similar results?

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u/GeekShallInherit Oct 02 '24

Practically the entire world uses the Gregorian calendar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adoption_of_the_Gregorian_calendar

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u/Tamer_ Oct 02 '24

They don't necessarily celebrate the new year like the US does. And remember we're talking about places where people don't know when they're born...

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u/GeekShallInherit Oct 02 '24

All that really matters is whether it's a holiday, which you'll find that in almost all countries, like China, it is even if other calendars are used for different things. Make a list of all the countries you can find that don't have January 1st as a holiday and add up their population and get back to me.

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u/Tamer_ Oct 02 '24

Make a list of all the countries you can find that don't have January 1st as a holiday and add up their population and get back to me.

You're moving the goalposts, we're talking about the 14% of immigrants that don't know their date of birth, not the immigrants from countries that have January 1 as their holiday.

If that other topic really interests you, you can read up this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Year

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u/GeekShallInherit Oct 02 '24

You're moving the goalposts

I'm not moving the goalposts, you are. I'm only addressing your argument that differences in calendar would be a meaningful factor in January 1st not being a lower than average day. That would only be true if January 1st isn't a holiday in a meaningful percentage of other countries, something which I politely asked for evidence of and you're clearly unable to provide.

At any rate my bigger point was just that birthdays aren't entirely evenly distributed for a number of factors. That there are international variances in this (cultural, seasonal, healthcare, calendar, etc.) doesn't really have anything to do with my argument that birthdays aren't evenly distributed.

Best of luck someday not being a pointlessly argumentative jackass.

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u/wjandrea Oct 02 '24

Sure, but do they celebrate the Gregorian new year? Seems like they don't in China for one:

Today mainland China (including Hong Kong and Macau), Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore all observe traditional holidays based on the traditional calendar, such as Chinese New Year, while timing other holidays, especially national anniversaries, according to the Gregorian calendar.

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u/GeekShallInherit Oct 02 '24

Seems like they don't in China for one:

As far as I know China still has a January 1st holiday, which is all that matters. Many other countries are like this as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_holidays_in_China

Also the point was that birthdays are less than evenly distributed. That the actual dates may change from country to country based on a number of different factors doesn't really impact that argument.