Fiona McCade: Who run the world? First-born girls

[theHandpuppet]

http://www.scotsman.com/news/fiona-mccade-who-run-the-world-first-born-girls-1-3394924
The Scotsman
2 May, 2014
Fiona McCade: Who run the world? First-born girls
Are younger siblings who outshine their elders the exceptions that prove the rule, or proof that birth order is irrelevant to success, asks Fiona McCade

HAVE you ever heard of Zofia Sklodowska? She was the eldest child of Bronislawa and Wladyslaw Sklodowski and she had four little brothers and sisters: Josef, Bronislawa, Helena and Marie.

If Zofia’s name doesn’t mean anything to you, then that of her youngest sibling, Marie, might ring a bell. Marie went on to discover two new elements, radium and polonium, and became not only the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, but the first person to win two, in different fields – one for physics and one for chemistry. Perhaps you know Marie by her married name, Curie.

If a new study is to be believed, Marie Curie’s success is doubly unusual, because eldest – not youngest – daughters are the ones most likely to take the world by storm.

According to the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex, nobody can beat a family’s eldest child for drive and achievement, and if that child is female, the effects are even more marked. Whatever the size, status or configuration of a family, first-born girls are the ones most likely to go on to higher education, and are 13 per cent more ambitious than even first-born boys.... MORE

[ismnotwasm]

1. Interesting article

Far too many variables though. And since women clearly don't rule the world it's a moot point--unless some sort of equity is established

[theHandpuppet]

5. Agreed.

I've often wondered, though, what the world might be like if all barriers were removed. Is power in of itself an unavoidable, corrupting influence?

[unblock]

2. great, more fodder for first-born bigots.

while this is interesting from a scientific perspective, and i recognize that such things are important to understand on a societal level, i know far too many people, invariably first-borns themselves, who strut around telling others how best to live their lives and acting as if they're superior to everyone else.

admittedly this has struck a never as my brother is precisely one of these people. he has many friends and virtually *all* of them are also first-borns. some of his friends are quite decent people, but many of them also look down on anyone who is not themselves a first-born.

[theHandpuppet]

4. As for me, I'm 3 of 6

I think I spent most of my childhood trying to be inconspicuous, or at least out of the way of warring factions.

[unblock]

7. yes, middlest of 3 boys here. #1 and #3 fought all the time.

and now a key part of my current job is to facilitate negotiations between other companies, where my company simply wants the deal to close so we get our fee?

[seabeyond]

3. their "definition" of success. i have lots of thought on pecking order.

love this stuff. but, i had to make very clear. there are all kinds of definition of success. in my family, what i say to my kids, ... i have been so FUGGIN' clear. there are different definitions of success.

i will continue on....

[theHandpuppet]

6. Just look at Marie Curie's family as an example...

I thought it was incredibly sad that Marie's sister Eve thought of herself as unsuccessful.

(another excerpt)

Looking again at Marie Curie’s family tree, we see that it wasn’t as straightforward as it looked. Families rarely are. In fact, Zofia died young, but the grief of her death caused Marie to become an atheist. Who knows if that pushed her even further into the realms of science? Marie herself had two daughters. The elder, Irene, also became a Nobel Laureate in chemistry. The younger, Eve, was a celebrated author, who fought for the French Resistance and worked tirelessly for Unicef. She once remarked: “There were five Nobel Prizes in my family: two for my mother, one for my father, one for [my] sister and brother-in-law and one for my husband. Only I was not successful.”