Relative age effect on labor market outcomes for high skilled workers – evidence from soccer

In sport and education contexts, children are divided into age-groups which are arbitrary constructions based on the admission dates. This age-group system is thought to determine differences in maturity between pupils within the same group, that is, relative age (RA). In turn, these within-age-group maturity differences produce performance gaps, that is, relative age effects (RAE), which might persist and affect the labor market outcome. I analyze the RAE on labor market outcomes using a unique dataset providing information on a particular group of high skilled workers: soccer players in the Italian major soccer league. In line with previous studies, evidence on the existence of RAE in terms of representativeness is found, meaning that players born relatively early in the age-group are over-represented, while players born relatively late are under-represented, even accounting for specific population trends. Moreover, players born relatively late in the age-group receive lower gross wages than players born relatively early. This wage gap seems to increase with age and in the quantile of the wage distribution

The relative age effect on labour market outcomes – evidence from Italian football

Researchquestion:Thisstudyinvestigateswhethertherelativeage effect (RAE) persists in the long term and affects Italian-born footballers’ performance and wages. Research methods: A unique dataset on 1700 individual players’ remuneration and performance was collected and analysed through the chi-square goodness-of-fit, the Spearman’s rank correlation and an econometric model. Results and findings: This study contributes to the literature by providing clear results on long-term RAE. We find evidence of the RAE in terms of representativeness, which means that, in an age group, players born relatively early are overrepresented, while those born relatively late are underrepresented, even accounting for national birth trends. Moreover, although they perform similarly, the gross wages of players born relatively late are statistically significantly lower than those of players born relatively early. Implications: This situation needs to be considered by various football stakeholders and tackled accordingly to minimize the loss of potential youth football talent. Further research is needed to identify the determinants of RAE in the long ter

Strategic behaviours in a labour market with mobility-restricting contractual provisions: evidence from the National Hockey League

We follow workers' performance along an unbalanced panel dataset over multiple years and study how performance varies at the end of fixed-term contracts, in a labour market where some people face a mobility restricting clause (i.e., a noncompete clause). Focusing on the labour market of the National Hockey League, we analyse players' performance data and contracts with a fixed effect estimator to address empirical limitations in previous studies. We find that, on average, NHL players' performance does not vary. However, our estimations detect substantially heterogeneous behaviours, depending on tenure, perceived expected performance and mobility. Only younger players (i.e., restricted free-agents) with high expected mobility but low expected performance tend to behave strategically and perform better. Differently, older players (i.e., unrestricted free-agents) with high expected mobility tend to underperform, as the option of moving back to European tournaments is more appealing

More goals, fewer babies? On national team performance and birth rates

Does national team performance boost birth rates? We compiled a unique dataset combining country-level monthly birth rates for 50 European countries, over 56 years, with measures of national teams’ performance in 27 international football events. We find that an increase in national team performance in international cups is associated with a drop in the birth rate nine months after the event. We hypothesize that these results might be explained by individuals’ time allocation choices

The relative age effect is larger in Italian soccer top-level youth categories and smaller in Serie A

The relative age effect (RAE; i.e., an asymmetry in the birth distribution) is a bias observed in sport competitions that may favour relatively older athletes in talent identification. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the presence of RAE in elite soccer players competing in the Italian championships, even considering the discriminations of younger and older Serie A players (in relation to the median age of the sample), and different positional roles (i.e., goalkeeper, defender, midfielder, forward) for each observed category. A total of 2051 players competing into the 2017-2018 Italian under-15 (n = 265), under-16 (n = 362), under-17 (n = 403), Primavera (n = 421) and Serie A (n = 600) championships were analysed. The birth-date distributions, grouped in four quartiles (i.e., January-March, Q1; April-June, Q2; July-September, Q3; October-December, Q4), were compared to a uniform distribution using Chi-squared analysis. The week of birth was analysed using Poisson regression. The results showed a large over-representation of players born in Q1 in all soccer player categories. However, the effect size of this trend resulted smaller as age increased. Individuals born in Q1 have about two-folds more chances to become a Serie A player compared to those born in Q4. The Poisson regression analysis showed that RAE was greater for defenders than for forwards among all categories. Therefore, a strongly biased selection emerged among elite soccer players competing in Italian championships, highlighting how young individuals born in the first three months have many more chances to become elite players compared to the others