Is it a superstition that babies born in a Year of the Dragon will have good luck? The Taiwanese government wanted to dispell the superstition.
The demographic spike in 1976 was sufficiently large that governments decided to issue warnings in 1987 against having babies in Dragon years because of the problems they caused for the educational system, particularly with respect to finding teachers and classroom space. Editorials were issued that claimed no special luck or intelligence for Dragon babies and a government program in Taiwan was designed to alert parents to the special problems faced by children born in an unusually large cohort (Goodkind, 1991, p. 677 cites multiple newspaper accounts of this).
But the effort failed and another spike was seen in 1988. Why? Because the dragon superstition is true. In this paper by Johnson and Nye, among Asian immigrants to the US, those born in Dragon years are compared to those born in non-Dragon years. Dragon babies are more successful as measured in terms of educational attainment. And the difference is larger than the corresponding difference for other US residents.
And of course it turns out that this is due to the self-fulfilling nature of the superstition. Asian Dragon babies have parents who are more successful and they are more likely to have altered their fertility timing in order to have a baby in a Dragon year. Is this because the smarter parents were more likely to be dumb enough to believe the superstition?
Or is it because of statistical discrimination? Since the Dragon superstition is true, being a Dragon is a signal of talent and luck. Unless these traits are observable without error, even unlucky and untalented Dragons will be treated preferentially relative to unlucky and untalented non-Dragons. Smart parents know this and wait until Dragon years.
Thanks to Toomas Hinnosaar for the pointer.
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7 comments
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April 19, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Alicia
Wow I never knew I was so lucky as a dragon ( 1976). Do you think it counts for non asians?
April 20, 2010 at 11:08 am
jeff
Alicia: according to table 1 in the paper non-Asian Dragons are no luckier than us non-Asian Monkeys. Plus, being a Dragon makes you just a figment of my imagination.
April 19, 2010 at 4:26 pm
Ryan N
“unlucky and untalented Dragons will be treated preferentially relative to unlucky and untalented non-Dragons”
Yes, but talented Dragons will do worse than talented non-Dragons, since each group must be compensated according to its average productivity. I suppose that risk averse parents might still want to have Dragon offspring, though.
April 19, 2010 at 8:49 pm
Ryan
I never stopped to think about that… really brilliant insight. Being that I live in Asia, I better go along with the superstition and shoot for a dragon year. That gives me two years or 14 years. Hmm…
April 20, 2010 at 8:45 am
Ron
I guess its a given that if you study outcomes in the united states or other non-far eastern countries. you won’t see this effect? I guess the taiwanese won’t change their behavior over an study like that…
May 2, 2010 at 12:46 pm
mike
probably dragon babies are more successful in school because of the very fact that more attention and resources must be paid to that cohort due to their size. the ‘special problems’ that the cohort faces, are not actually problems for the cohort themselves, but the education system that must adapt to them.
similarly, are baby boomers worse off then gen x because of how many more of them there are, or vice versa?
January 23, 2012 at 11:34 am
Etiquette & superstition: dragons « Fancy Notions
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