Is Month of Birth Associated with School Outcomes in Sweden?

Vitor F. Miranda , Statistics Sweden
Fredrik Andersson, Statistics Sweden

Schooling laws typically mandate that children start compulsory education the calendar year in which they turn a given age. This entails that children born earlier in the year are older than their other classmates. This has been reported to translate into inequalities in educational attainment in some countries, as older students tend to outperform their younger classmates. This study investigates whether there is evidence of this process in the Swedish educational system. School grades in mathematics and physical education at the final year of compulsory school are analyzed using register data on the total population of students in 2013-2018. A stronger gradient is found in physical education than in mathematics. Moreover, the gradient is more pronounced among boys and native-born pupils than among girls and foreign-born pupils.

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 Presented in Session P3. Poster Session Migration, Economics, Environment, Methods, History and Policy