Do Children Born in an 'Auspicious' Year Study Better? When Parents' Beliefs Make the Prediction Come True

Short answer: there is an effect, but it does not come from the birth year

The question of whether children born in an auspicious year study better has been tested with real data, not just belief. The results are fairly consistent: children born in a year considered favourable, typically the Dragon year in East Asian cultures, tend to reach higher levels of education and score slightly higher than peers born in other years. But when researchers isolate the contribution of parental expectations and investment, most of that difference disappears. In other words, parents' beliefs produced a real outcome, not the birth year itself.

This is the core point to keep throughout: the effect is real, but the mechanism is adult behaviour, not a birth chart or zodiac sign.

What does research in mainland China say?

Naci Mocan and Han Yu, published in the Journal of Human Capital in 2020, used three micro-level datasets collected in mainland China and found that people born in Dragon years had a higher probability of graduating from university and higher college entrance exam scores than people of the same or similar age born in other years. The authors also noted a spike in births during recent Dragon years, and an increase in marriages in the two years before a Dragon year, consistent with couples trying to time their child's birth to the Dragon year¹.

The most important part is the mechanism test. The authors checked background factors such as family circumstances, self-esteem, and the child's own expectations and aspirations, and found no difference between Dragon-year children and others. What differed was the parents: parents of Dragon-year children held higher expectations and invested more, from more frequent contact with homeroom teachers to exempting the child from household chores. When parental expectations are accounted for, the difference in educational outcomes disappears.

One notable detail: the authors also measured height and found that girls born in Dragon years had a height advantage over girls born in other years, suggesting parents may also invest more in nutrition for Dragon-year daughters.

The authors ruled out a competing explanation: that parents do not believe in the zodiac but simply worry their child will face more competition because the Dragon cohort is larger. They argued that if this were true, parents of Snake-year children, the cohort immediately after and also facing competition from the large Dragon cohort, would invest similarly. Their middle-school data showed this did not happen.

Research in Taiwan and Hong Kong: separating superstition from cohort size

Andy L. Chou, published in Kyklos in 2022, used Taiwan data to separate the superstition effect on education from the cohort-size effect. This is an important contribution because the Dragon cohort is larger, and a larger cohort can both increase competition and reduce the resources available per child. Separating the two shows how much is due to belief and how much to scale.

Yan Lau, published in the Journal of Population Economics in 2019, used Hong Kong data and found the Dragon cohort was about 5% larger, had higher maths scores, and explained most of the result through within-cohort competition.

These two results are not fully contradictory but do not yet form a unified picture. Chou separates the superstition effect from the cohort-size effect; Lau argues that within-cohort competition explains most of it. This is where the evidence is still thin and debated, and this article presents both rather than picking a side.

What about Asian-origin communities in the United States?

Noel D. Johnson and John V.C. Nye, published in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization in 2011, analysed data on Asian-origin people in the United States and found that those born in the 1976 Dragon year had more years of schooling. But the authors also pointed out that the mothers of this group were wealthier and more educated, meaning there is family selection: it is families with more resources and education who actively time births.

This matters greatly for understanding the mechanism. If families who time births are already better off and more focused on education, then part of the "Dragon year" effect is really a "families who time births" effect.

So where does the real effect come from?

At least two mechanisms have been proposed, and both have their own evidence.

The first mechanism is parental investment and expectations. Parents who believe their child has better prospects devote more resources to the child, and those resources produce real results. This is the mechanism Mocan and Yu emphasise, and it is tested directly with data on parental expectations.

The second mechanism is competition within a large cohort. A larger Dragon cohort means larger classes, fiercer university competition, and this can both disadvantage and spur effort. Lau argues this mechanism explains most of the Hong Kong results. Sim (2015), cited in Mocan and Yu, argues that the 1976 and 1977 birth cohorts in Singapore faced higher competition in university admissions.

The two mechanisms are not mutually exclusive. Both parental investment and within-cohort competition may operate together, with different weights depending on context. This is where researchers have not reached full agreement, and more data from other countries is needed.

How does a self-fulfilling prophecy work?

The concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy is not new in social science. What is notable here is that it has been tested with large-scale education data, not just anecdotal observation.

The mechanism operates in three steps. Step one, parents believe a Dragon-year child has good prospects. Step two, that belief changes behaviour: parents talk to teachers more, spend more time and resources on the child, hold higher expectations. Step three, that behaviour produces real results: the child does better in school, gets into university more often. Those results then reinforce the original belief, and the loop continues.

Crucially, none of these steps requires the birth year to act as a supernatural force. The birth year is only the anchor for the belief. It is the belief and the accompanying behaviour that produce the result.

Summary table of main studies

Evidence from Vietnam: comparing siblings

Quy-Toan Do and Tung D. Phung, published in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics in 2010, under the title "The Importance of Being Wanted". The study compared siblings within the same family in Vietnam, thereby removing differences between families, and found that children born in auspicious years had about two more months of schooling. The sibling comparison has a major advantage: two children share the same parents, economic circumstances, and environment, so any difference found is hard to attribute to family background.

The authors explain the result through the concept of "the importance of being wanted": a child born as planned and wanted by parents receives more investment, and this shows up in years of schooling.

This is direct evidence on Vietnamese people, and it matches the mechanism found in mainland China: it is not the birth year that matters, but whether the child was wanted and invested in by parents.

Why do the same phenomenon produce different results in different places?

There are several reasons.

First, the definition of "Dragon year" differs across studies. Mocan and Yu point out that Sim (2015) defined the Singapore Dragon cohort as including people born in 1976 and 1977, mixing the Rabbit, Dragon, and Snake zodiac signs, so the results cannot be attributed to the Dragon year alone. This is a methodological issue, not a cultural one.

Second, institutional contexts differ. Mocan and Yu cite Goodkind (1991) arguing that institutional conditions in mainland China in the 1970s and 1980s, along with birth control policies, meant that the Dragon-year baby booms of 1976 and 1988 did not occur on the mainland while they did in Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, and the US.

Third, the degree and manner of belief differ. In some places, zodiac belief is tied to birth timing; elsewhere it is just conversation. The investment that accompanies it therefore also differs.

Where the evidence is still lacking

Existing studies use different data and have not fully agreed on the mechanism. Mocan and Yu emphasise parental expectations and rule out within-cohort competition, while Lau argues that within-cohort competition explains most of the Hong Kong case. More research is needed to determine the weight of each mechanism in each context.

There has been no similar large-scale study in Vietnam on the Dragon-year effect on education. The Do and Phung study in Vietnam concerns being born as planned and wanted, not specifically the Dragon year. Therefore results from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, or Asian-origin communities in the US cannot be extrapolated to Vietnamese people.

It is also unclear whether the effect persists in later generations, as economic and educational conditions change and birth rates fall sharply in many places.

Nhat Nguyen's suggestions

Nhat Nguyen's suggestions: if you read the above studies to draw something for raising children, what you draw is not to choose the birth year. What you draw is that parental expectations and investment produce real differences, and both do not depend on the child's zodiac sign. A child born in any year can receive that expectation and investment.

If your child was born in a year considered "bad", no study shows this hinders their learning. Studies in mainland China show that it is parents' beliefs that are the variable producing differences, and the Vietnam study shows that being wanted and planned is what matters. Both conclusions point in the same direction: invest in your child, not in choosing a birth year for your child.

This is also how Nhat Nguyen presents topics related to folk beliefs: beliefs produce real behaviour, and behaviour produces real outcomes. This does not mean the belief correctly predicts the nature of the birth year. It only means the belief has the power to change how people act.

So how to answer the original question?

Children born in years considered auspicious do have slightly higher education in many datasets. But most of that difference comes from parents: from families who time births being wealthier, to parents holding higher expectations and investing more. When these factors are controlled, the difference nearly disappears. The mechanism is a self-fulfilling prophecy, operating through adult behaviour, not through the birth year.

This holds for both positive and negative outcomes. In Singapore, Agarwal and colleagues (2017), cited in Mocan and Yu, found that the income of Dragon-year children was lower, and attributed this to the larger cohort reducing wage pressure when labour demand is inelastic. Thus, the same belief can produce different outcomes depending on economic and institutional context. What is constant is not the birth year, but the behaviour of the adults around the child.