Birth Order, Graduate School, and Marriage

Abstract

The results from previous research have shown that firstborn children have both higher needs for achievement and greater needs for affiliation than do later borns. Sampson (1962) found a higher achievement need (see McClelland, 1961) among firstborns than Later borns, and Schachter (1963) discovered that firstborns are over-represented in graduate schools, a finding which also suggests that firstborns have a higher need for achievement. In addition, Schachter (1959) demonstrated that firstborn children showed more evidence of affiliative behavior in response to the arousal of anxiety or distress than later born children, and Smart (1965) found a greater need for affiliation among firstborn males which was reflected in a greater number of club memberships. The present study investigated whether or not firstborns are more likely to be married than later borns while in college. Since early marriage might interfere with long-range options and career plans and limit freedom of movement or mobility, the higher need for achievement of firstborns suggests that they should delay gratification longer and postpone marriage for more years than larer borns. The higher need for affiliation, on the other hand, of firstborns would suggest that they should more likely be married, since marriage is one form of affiliative behavior. The present study tested this hypothesis, and replicated Schacter's (1963) findings of over-representation of firstborns in graduate school. Questionnaires were given to a random sample of 300 married students (276 males, 24 females) attending rhe University of Missouri at Rolla which for the most part consisted of science and engineering majors. Subjects indicated order of birth (first, second, third, etc.) and sex. Thus, the only children were classified with the firstborns and factors such as number of children in the family, age differences between siblings, and the sex of the nearest sibling were not considered. The same questionnaire was also given to a random sample of 143 graduate students (138 males, 5 females) to see if Schachter's (1963) findings of over-representation of firstborns in graduate school could be replicated within this particular specialized, i.e., science and engineering, population of subjects. The results for married students indicated that only 56 6% ( 136 out of 276) married males were firstborn and that only 11 o ut of 24 (45 8% 'i;) married females were firstborn. Since 43% of the general population are firstborn or only children, these results do not differ significantly from chance for either males (x' = .55, df = 1) or females (x' = .17, df = 1). The results for graduate students indicated that 88% of the males (121 out of 138) were firstborns (x3 = 113.81, df = 1, p < .001). Among females, 100% were firstborn (5 out of 5), but the sample size is too small for conclusions. Combining the results for all graduate students. 88.1% were firstborn. While firstborns were tremendously over-represented in graduate school (a confirmation of Schachter's results), they probably did not differ from later borns with regard to being married while in college.