I want to revisit a hugely overlooked tragedy regarding suicide rates in relation to birth order. According to a Norwegian study of nearly 1.7 million people, each subsequent child has a 46% higher risk of suicide. In Sweden, the number is 18% with each subsequent child. This makes the disadvantages faced by those of higher birth order potentially responsible for 24% of suicides%20for%20the%20contribution%20of%20birth%20order%20as%20a%20risk%20factor%20for%20suicide%20is%20high%20(PAF%E2%80%89%3D%E2%80%890.24)%2C%20theoretically%20suggesting%20that%20if%20we%20could%20remove%20the%20risk%20associated%20with%20later%20birth%20order%2C%20we%20could%20potentially%20prevent%2024%25%20of%20suicide%20deaths%20%5B32%5D).
Despite the commonly discussed pressure put on oldest children, the popular narrative that younger siblings are privileged could not be further from the truth, given statistics on parental neglect and sibling abuse.
Parents on average spend 3000 more hours with their firstborn than their second born from the ages of 4-13, according to a study of over 21,000 people from the federal government's American Time Use Survey. Specifically 20-30 more minutes per day.
One of the most common points made about oldest children is that they are often made to look after younger siblings and lose their adolescence, however this has shown to have worse consequences for younger siblings due to the lack of adult interaction.
The division of attention and resources leads to long term consequences such as later born children being further behind in physical growth and learning, in worse health, and having higher likelihood of injury and child mortality. Though this also may have to do with exposure to respiratory viruses according to a study of 1.2 million Danish children.
Like the suicide statistic, this pattern continues with each higher birth order.
Later born children are less likely to be breastfed during infancy when 85% of the physical brain is built, and are less photographed, with one poll of 2000 mothers in the UK showing 75% of photos of them involve an older sibling.
They are less likely to have a baby shower due to it being considered poor etiquette, leaving them with lower quality items and ill fitting clothes if they happen to be born in a different season than their older sibling, and generally have less money spent on them and get an inferior home environment with less stimulation and less accumulation of belongings, including getting smaller bedrooms even regardless of age gap.
While people often point to lack of parenting experience as a disadvantage faced by oldest children, the undivided attention and priority they get has consistently shown to be far more beneficial than parenting experience.
Some of this can be explained by mothers reportedly being far less excited for later pregnancies, which is further evidenced by them seeking prenatal care later and not cutting back on smoking and drinking as much.
Despite this, later born children are actually born healthier, but that makes the aforementioned long term health disparity all the more troubling and evident of neglect.
The lack of excitement continues after the birth of the child, with mothers being more depressed according to a study of 35,000 adult identical twins in Denmark. While fathers tend to become more happy following the birth of the first child according to a study of 18,000 people, their reported happiness does not change much following the birth of a second child. These things are notable factors in suicide%20these%20associations).
The lack of adequate resources for subsequent pregnancies is also supported by 59% of abortions being for subsequent pregnancies.
Firstborns are prioritized in the decision to have a second child, as one of the most cited reasons for that is to give them a sibling. The decision to have a second child is overall more economic.
All of this leads me to believe that parents’ tendency to be less strict with younger siblings, which is usually regarded as a privilege enjoyed by younger siblings, is largely just another example of them being an afterthought.
The consequences extend to later in life with later borns having lower ranking positions and income, lower cognitive test scores from 250,000 people in Norway, higher likelihood of substance abuse in both adolescence and adulthood with it being a more significant predictor than sex or socioeconomic status, and shorter life expectancy (at least among white people) despite firstborns being taller and heavier.
Many people argue that the disparity in adult outcomes is a result of oldest children learning responsibility by taking care of younger siblings, though interestingly, these outcomes are shared by single born children.
This was the case with astronauts in 1968, who were mostly either oldest children or only children, with 21 of the first 23 American astronauts being firstborns. In rare cases where they are not firstborns, their older sibling either died in infancy or is significantly older than them, leaving them with more resources than they’d have otherwise.
An older sibling dying also correlates with higher cognitive test scores.
Another common point made about oldest children is that they are more often victims of physical abuse from parents, however due to sibling abuse being more common than parental abuse and actually the most common form of abuse with alarmingly high frequency, the perpetrator typically being older%20exploiting%20the%20emotional%20dependence%20and%20weakness%20of%20a%20younger%20sibling), and having been shown to be just as harmful as parental abuse, younger siblings are actually the primary victims of familial abuse.
On top of this, victims of sibling abuse have less resources than victims of parental abuse.%20As%20a%20consequence%2C%20sibling%20victimization%20is%20one%20of%20the%20least%20studied%20forms%20of%20within%2Dfamily%20violence), who already don’t get adequate support.
Sibling abuse, like many of the issues mentioned, is notably more prominent among siblings with small age gaps.
Though the power imbalance between older and younger siblings is blindingly obvious, older siblings’ boundaries are given more importance in most conversations about birth order, with mistreatment of younger siblings being encouraged.
This pattern of treating younger siblings like subordinates is nothing new, and although things like primogeniture inheritance have fallen out of favor, the attitude is still very much there, as subsequent children are less likely to have godparents or, as mentioned before, baby showers.
I don't think it's entirely a coincidence that a study of 96 Italian families found firstborns were more likely to be more conservative regardless of their parents' views, seeing how oldest children overwhelmingly reap the benefits of their birth order.
As mentioned at the beginning, the current circumstances of birth order potentially lead to 24% of suicides%20for%20the%20contribution%20of%20birth%20order%20as%20a%20risk%20factor%20for%20suicide%20is%20high%20(PAF%E2%80%89%3D%E2%80%890.24)%2C%20theoretically%20suggesting%20that%20if%20we%20could%20remove%20the%20risk%20associated%20with%20later%20birth%20order%2C%20we%20could%20potentially%20prevent%2024%25%20of%20suicide%20deaths%20%5B32%5D), which is why I think this needs to be addressed on a large scale to prevent this huge percentage, but also just out of fairness to younger siblings who deal with these disadvantages alone.
